Getting Infected by Fake Balkans in Jerusalem

So it's been a good month of late-night partying in the parking lots of Jerusalem. First, we had a 'Black Party' with world beatsters Balkan Beat Box in mid-November, put on by the Iriyah (City Hall), in the parking lot just under city hall. Then on Thursday night, Infected Mushroom brought their psychedelic mix of electronica, metal, trip hop and breakbeat to another parking lot in the city center, directly across from the Supreme Court.

Of course Mayor Nir Barakat was at both shows making sure all the young Jerusalemites out there know how much he cares about us and getting a photo op in a room with 5,000 after-midnight revelers. His speech before Infected was especially messianic and went something like this: "You can feel a change happening in Jerusalem, a deep and meaningful change in the air. We're taking back the city." He got raucous applause for that last remark.

The crowds at both shows were mainly people in their mid-to-late 20s into their mid-30s. The crowd was definitely shadier at Infected Mushroom, with the smell of high grade marijuana everywhere by the time Infected took the stage at 1:30 a.m. My brother also almost got my credit card and license stolen outside an hour earlier - I had given them to him to pick up our will call tickets and I'm still not sure what happened exactly but it was a stressful first 15 minutes to the night.

I had already come off a high of running a successful live event for the financial website I work for ending at about 10:30 p.m. local time and requiring many hours of preparation in advance, so by the time Infected came on, I was ready to throw down. The crew was me, my brother, Oren N. who had a big shit-eating grin for most of the night though he doesn't especially like electronic music, and Ilana Rachel of Nachlaot fame. She had quite a story herself as she almost got crushed by the crowd from her front row spot and had to be pulled out by a 250 pound Russian security guard.

Musically, both concerts were on a very high level but Balkan Beat Box was definitely the better of the two shows in my opinion. I wanted Infected to stretch out the electronic interludes more at many points but they kept mixing in more vocals, and I'm not the biggest fan of some of their newer stuff.

I first got into them when I was volunteering on Kibbutz Ketura down in the Arava Valley, 50k north of Eilat. They had just released their double disk, Converting Vegetarians, and I still think the 2nd disk of that album is their best (and one of my top 25 favorite albums of all time - I'll have to draw up an actual list at some point). Some of the local kibbutz kids that I used to go to trance parties with were into them and that second disk was a favorite during the after party unwind.

Anyway, for all the complaining I hear at times that Israel is a live music wasteland, I've caught some great shows since getting here over 5 years ago including Medeski Martin and Wood, Arrested Development, Air, and now BBB and Infected Mushroom. And that doesn't count local favorites Shotei Hanevua who Simone and I saw 10 times before they broke up, Jazz master Avishai Cohen and the now defunct Third World Love.

Check out some pics from the shows (Jerusalem.com/Ben J. gets credit for the first 3) - as always, good times:

Balkan Beat Box (11.11.09)

Barakat works the crowd at Balkan Beat Box

Fans, dressed in Black, wait for Balkan to take the stage

The opener for Balkan, Reggaestan, with my old friend Ziv playing the bass

Simone gets ready to get down

Me in black with some new wave flourishes on my head and toes

Simone, Ora, Charlotte

A crowd shot during Balkan's set

Infected Mushroom (12.17.09)

Infected with large blow-up Mushroom behind them. That thing had some strange eyes, I'm telling you!

Some videos of Infected from Thursday night, 7th night of Chanukah

A Message of World Peace

From Flight of the Conchords:

If every soldier in the world
Put down his weapon and picked up a woman
What a peaceful world this world would be
Redheads not warheads
Blondes not bombs
We're talkin' about brunettes not fighter jets
Oooh Oooh it's got to be Sweet 16's not M-16's
When will the governments realize it's got to be funky sexy ladies?

Here's the video.

I know this is a bit old but these Kiwis are hilarious!

Happy Hannukah All!

Me, Armin and Noam - Because That's How I Roll Biatches!

This post is part of Common Sensorium's "History Series"

So there we were at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning in July 2004 in Bodrum on the Turkish Riviera. The sea of hotties parted to reveal the hottiest of them all, Armin Van Buuren, World's # 1 trance DJ for 3 years running (he was #3 at the time - he's really picked up his game since then). The moment yielded this picture, our greatest souvenir from our one month trip to Turkey with the possible exception of Erkut's beach towel (long story, can't get into it now but Noam knows what I'm talking about as he was the perp ;-).

click all pics to enlarge them
Notice Noam flashing the 3 there for #3 DJ in the world!

Armin was super nice - and not ditzy at all despite his uber-blond hair and generally 'I'm an awesome Trance DJ guy' attitude. In truth, he actually didn't seem full of himself at all and was just a normal guy and wanted to know how we liked the party.

So how did we come to meet the man who is currently the world's #1 trance DJ? All week in Bodrum, where Noam's old Harvard roommate, Erkut Kokobiachi's parents, have a beach house in Turkey's finest, honeyest beach town, we kept seeing signs for the 'World's #3 DJ, Armin van Buuren'. The party was to take place on a boat (with a light up glass bottom that allowed you to see the ocean underneath!) called the Catamaran that sailed out to sea at 10 p.m. and returned at 6 a.m. Armed only with the vodka red bull in our bellies and our best impersonation of Eurotrash, we set sail on the Gulf of Gökova in the Aegean Sea with Armin's trance synthesizer our syren's song.

In general, our trip to Turkey was awesome - I got a really good impression of the people and country. Turks know how to have a good time but they're also a pretty intellectual bunch and it was cool to be in a country that is 99% Muslim and tell everyone we were Jewish and see what sort of reactions we got (they were mostly positive).

Here are some more pictures from our magical evening with Armin van Buuren, World's #1 Trance DJ, because that's how I roll biatches!

Oh no, too much vodka and red bull!

Is that Armin van Buuren's Jewish stunt double?

And finally, a YouTube video with Armin vB spinning on the party boat (it may actually be from 2007):


Work it Armondo!

Just a Game

So I've got the NFL.com football package which gives me access to live streaming of every NFL game and it's been great. Sunday has fast become my most anticipated day of the week as I wait for friends to gather, drink beer and eat crap I'd never get away with eating for dinner (we had hot dogs in blankets this week).

My favorite team is the NY Giants. I grew up watching Big Blue win the Super Bowl when I was 10 (the famous Gulf War game) and have been a fan ever since. Recently, the G-men knocked off the undefeated New England Patriots to win their 3rd franchise championship - an especially sweet victory due to the way it went down (the 'Helmet' catch and last minute drive to put the Giants on top).

This season has been a fairly disappointing one for the Giants thus far but they went a long way towards salvaging things on Sunday with their 2nd win this year over the hated Dallas Cowboys. As I see it, the Giants really have two problems this year: an erratic defense and an inconsistent offense. After starting out 5-0, they failed to score more than their opponents 5 of the next 6 weeks - something I blame both their defense and offense for. At 7-5, they're on the bubble to make the playoffs. Hopefully they continue to score more than their opponents - if not they will lose games and not make the playoffs.

Which is the great thing about watching football: it's a good excuse to get together with the guys and have some fun but at the end of the day, it matters not whether your team wins or loses. I'll never understand people that go into some sort of deep depression if 'their' team loses. After all, it's just a game. And I get to eat my hot dogs in blankets and drink my beer and see the guys whether the Giants win or lose.

Love in the Time of Swine Flu

So I had a very Israeli experience at the pharmacy today. I was in Gilo picking up my vitamin B12 which my doctor is obsessed with for some reason (every doctor seems to have some similar obsession - it's exercise for my Dad, Vitamin D for Simone's Mom) and there was the usual long line to get service. I initially sat down next to this 20-something arsy girl (that the sephardic equivalent of white trash for those that are unfamiliar with arsim) who looked pretty ill. Then she started up with the hacking cough. My immediate instinct was to move to the other side of the room. But she was indignant and called out to me, "What, you think I have Swine Flu?" to which I responded, "I don't know, do you?"

I'm not normally a paranoid type with these things but I figure with an 8-month old in the house, I can't be too safe in the age of Swine Flu (though I'm not afraid of it personally - I don't think it's all that dangerous for healthy adults).

The real kicker came on the flip side. I went to the ATM to withdraw my money for the week and there was hacking cough girl smoking a cigarette. I sincerely hope she didn't have Swine Flu as it seems to attack the respiratory system more than other bodily systems. But whatever she had, I'm pretty sure smoking a cigarette was the last thing she should have been doing. Only in Israel!

Fort Hood Shooting an Act of Islamist Terror? A Little Honesty Please

If you can heal the symptoms but not affect the cause
Then you can't heal the symptoms

- Tom Marshal, Lyric from Phish song 'Sand'

It's probably a bit odd to quote a lyric from the least political band ever in a very political piece but it's very appropriate in this case. The mainly left-wing American mainstream media and our current administration have refused to even contemplate what I think most intelligent Americans know to be obvious: That Nidal Malik Hasan committed the worst massacre on an army base on U.S. soil as a result of his holding a radical Islamist ideology. If that's not terrorism, I don't know what is? And what do we gain by playing some idiotic semantic game, as the Obama administration would like?

So what's the big deal? A murder is a murder, right? And if what happened on Thursday in Texas was terrorism, why isn't the Oklahoma State Bombing or Columbine or any number of other incidents?

Well first of all, I'd argue any incident committed out of an ideology that preaches hatred and mass murder is indeed an act of terror. The notion that only a muslim can commit terrorism is downright offensive; anyone can commit an act of terror and the ideologies that can lead someone to commit so horrible an act are varied. In my experience, the people who commit these sort of acts within open and free societies rely on an ideology of some sort that demonizes large swaths of their fellow members of society and that demands vengeance and mass murder as a result. So there's nothing qualitatively worse about radicalized Islam then say the far-right ideology that led Timothy McVeigh to murder hundreds in Oklahoma City. It doesn't matter whether the terrorist acted alone or as part of some larger group. It's the ideology and targeting of a specific national, religious, or sexual group or orientation simply because they're members of that group that makes an act a 'terrorist' act. (Thus, a military targeting fighters that accidentally catches civilians in the crossfire is not committing a terror act.)

That being said, to deny the background that led to this most recent attack, to use Orwellian news-speak as the NY Times has in refusing to even identify the shooter's religion for over a day after the attack and fail to report details like that he screamed 'Allah Akbar' as he opened fire is downright dangerous and extremely dishonest (not that I expect honesty from the media ;-). Because it places a barrier to preventing this sort of act in the future. As in the AA's 12-step program, the first step to arriving at a solution is admitting you have a problem and identifying very specifically what that is.

As Mark Steyn wrote in the National Review this weekend in his excellent piece:

What happened to those men and women at Fort Hood had a horrible symbolism: Members of the best trained, best equipped fighting force on the planet gunned down by a guy who said a few goofy things no one took seriously. And that’s the problem: America has the best troops and fiercest firepower, but no strategy for throttling the ideology that drives the enemy — in Afghanistan and in Texas.

If you can't even admit that ideology exists and is at the root of this sort of act, then you can't fight it or stop it. And if this root cause isn't properly addressed, I assume this sort of act will happen again and again on U.S. soil. And President Obama will be digging his own political grave, because mainstream media denials aside, the American people are pretty perceptive when it comes to this sort of thing and they're gonna want to know why their men in uniform are being sacrificed on the altar of political correctness and strategic ignorance in the face of a threat that won't simply go away because we pretend it doesn't really exist.

Naked in Fairfax County, VA

So apparently, being naked in your home carries up to a year in prison in Fairfax County, VA. The Washington Post reports here. Eric Williamson was making breakfast naked is his own home, minding his own business when some cops arrived at his door and arrested him. Apparently a mother and her 7 year old son were passing by and saw him and did the obvious thing to do in that situation: they called the cops. They would have made for fine informants in Nazi Germany but that's besides the point.

Viewing nudity as some mortal sin stems from an overly Christian view of the human body in my opinion. If all sexuality is evil, then exposing a naked body, even in your own home, must be some sort of cardinal sin. Makes me glad I live in Jerusalem where the thought of imprisoning someone for this sort of thing would be laughable.

It also reminds me of a run-in I had with the law in Fairfax County, where this absurd comedy of justice is taking place. The year was 2002 and me and two friends (Eytan Bayme and Noam Osband) had done a 2 week spin from NYC down to the first Bonnaroo in Tennesse, then to Memphis, Little Rock, and New Orleans across the Panhandle and back up North. By the time we were passing through Fairfax, our car (the famous 'Lissmobile' '89 Red Astrovan) was a total mess. It was 2 a.m., Osband was at the wheel and got lost and made an illegal turn. Big mistake in Fairfax. We were immediately pulled over and 4 cops spent the next 2 hours combing over every inch of our van until 4 in the morning. They of course found nothing except a legal pill case with prescription medication.

Every so often, the Alpha Male of the group would say 'I know that's ecstasy in the pill case - you boys are in a heap of trouble.' He also asked us if we were following the Dead around - I had to break him the news that Jerry Garcia had died 7 years earlier. He was a pretty sorry excuse for a human being, relishing every tiny bit of authority he had. They also found fireworks which though legal pretty much everywhere south of the Mason Dixon line were illegal on that one stretch of road we happened to find ourselves on.

To conclude, if you happen to ever find yourself in Fairfax County, VA, run like hell. They don't look kindly on people like yourself, unless you've never before had a bottle of prescription medication in your possession and of course never been naked, even in your own home.

There Go Those Horrible Settlers Saving Another Palestinian Life

It's a shame some news doesn't get reported by the liberal-oriented western media. Anyone who knows me knows I'm certainly not the biggest fan of the settler enterprise. But last night pulling out of Efrat in the West Bank just past Bethlehem, I noticed a scene I have come upon once or twice in the past. An Arab family was sitting at the gate looking on hopefully while Jewish paramedics in full settler attire (if such a thing exists) were working frantically to save a Palestinian from a neighboring village. Being that Efrat has better first response medical supplies and personnel than many of the local Palestinian villages, Palestinians in dire need come right up to the gate of this settlement for emergency care when they truly require it.

I'm sure there was no time for these 'settler' paramedics to take a security history of this dying Palestinian. He or his family could have been terrorists or terrorist sympathizers for all they knew. But a human being in need showed up in desperate shape and they treated him as any decent person would: like a human being. Race, religion or creed played no factor in their medical decisions. And if the settlers were so damn dangerous, would a whole family of Palestinians really risk coming right up to the gate of a settlement and risk getting medical treatment? Clearly they wouldn't.

The NY Times, Haaretz, and assorted European media outlets should take note: Things in the territories are rarely what they seem. Or do some members of the western media elite already know this and choose to paint a far more black and white picture of things anyway just to further a predetermined agenda? Either way, these sorts of omissions in reporting on life in the Territories is nothing short of criminal. And instead of focussing on things that bring could people together, they create an unnecessary level of distrust between people for no real reason.

P.S. Thanks to Simone for this title - she exclaimed it immediately after we witnessed the scene described above and I instantly knew it would be the title of my next blog post.

Obama's Latest Iran Gambit: Kudos!

I have been somewhat critical of our current President on my blog over the last few months - especially as pertains to his dealings with Israel. I have to say, it's beginning to appear I may have underestimated his shrewdness when it comes to foreign policy. Case in point: he dropped this metaphorical bomb on the Iranians Friday together with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French Pres. Nicholas Sarkozy ('U.S. and Allies Warn Iran Over Nuclear ‘Deception’ - NY Times).

By first getting the Iranians to agree to meet and then only 5 days before the scheduled meeting, confronting them with nearly incontrovertible proof that they have a secret nuclear program hidden inside a mountain just outside of the Mullah's headquarters in Qom, he has backed them into a corner. They back out now and it becomes obvious they are hiding something. They show up to the meeting and they will be forced to answer for their secretive building project and subsequent deception in front of the globe's major superpowers (there's no question the plant is for a weapons program - it's too small for enriching fuel for energy needs unlike the previously declared and inspected plant at Natanz and Iran's failure to declare the plant and its location on a Revolutionary Guard base as well as its location just outside Qom pretty much seal the case.)

In a possible swipe at President Bush, Pres. Obama says he waited to come forth with the revelations to ensure the intelligence data the U.S. had was accurate - unlike Bush with Iraq's supposed WMDs. But the timing can not have been accidental. Waiting till less than a week before the meeting with Iran is too perfect to be merely coincidence. As Obama put it Friday,

“Iran is on notice that when we meet with them on Oct. 1 they are going to have to come clean and they will have to make a choice... The alternative to giving up their program is to continue down a path that is going to lead to confrontation.”

So Kudos to Obama for his latest Iran gambit. He'll certainly have an easier time convincing major global powers to impose 'crippling' sanctions than his predecessor, especially after meeting Iran face to face. No one will be able to say he didn't try. And now he's got a picture of Tehran with the 'smoking gun', so to speak.

Which brings me to another less important point but something I've been meaning to write about nonetheless: What's up with the insane anti-Obama attitude among Orthodox Jews?! In shul in Monsey on Rosh Hashana, the Rabbi suffixed Obama's name with a 'Yimach Shemo' - 'may his name be obliterated' - a phrase generally reserved for the likes of Hitler, Arafat, and Torquemada. Pretty much people who have spent their entire lives oppressing and murdering Jews by the thousands. Unfortunately, most Orthodox Jews are too illiterate, gullible and closed-minded to actually give Obama a fair hearing - I can name many similar instances since Obama took office, though few were this offensive (I was at a party in June, also in Monsey, where someone suggested a plate of extra watermelons be sent to Obama, to some snickers - that may have actually been worse. Come to think of it, maybe Monsey is the real problem ;-) ). Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all Orthodox Jews disdain Obama and of those that do many are not racist but I am still perturbed by all this, especially when the evidence is beginning to mount that the man may actually have some of our best interests in mind.

Bottom line: If he stands Iran down on the A-bomb - still a big if- he will be an automatic hero of mine and I will consider him Israel's greatest friend to ever serve in the White House. And right now, he's got a hell of a better chance of pulling it off than Bush, who carried a big stick, and allowed Iran to get 8 years closer to developing nukes.

Yalah Shachar! Andele Andy!

So only a crazy person would do this. I got off the nearly 12 hour flight from Israel to NYC, on which I barely slept b/c I was taking care of my two kids, both of who refused to sleep. My mom met us at the airport and dropped me by my brother Mo at the Subway on Jewel Ave. in Queens (right near his place near Queens College) where we got footlongs to go (kosher subway! I love NY) - mine was some sort of Italian style pastrami and turkey - delish! Then it was off to Flushing Meadows, home of the world's largest field of toilets and more importantly, round two of the U.S. Open.

We had nightcap tickets but that still gave us a groundspass which proved to be the best part of the whole thing. We got in and looked at the big scoreboard on Ashe Stadium to see what was going on. Shachar Pe'er, Israel's lone female hope was warming up on court 11 so we headed in there and were treated to a thrashing of Spain's Carla Suarez Navarro. Sachar was in top form, barely making an error and dropping only 2 games in 2 sets. I still think her serve needs to improve big time if she wants to really go far in a major but it was great to see her play so well following her injury.

The Israeli fans at her matches are insane. Constant screaming and catcalling, flag waiving, they bring their whole extended families out, pick up their cell phoes in the middle of a point. But they really get Shachar's back and I think it gives her lots of energy to play her best. My brother Yaakov, who hits a lot of U.S. Open tennis thinks Shachar has a better fan base there than most American players, with notable exceptions like Roddick and the Williams sisters.

Mid-match, I hopped out to go to the bathroom and found myself next to a guy who towered over me. I'm not a short guy - 6'1" or so - and I've never felt like such a midget in my life. This guy may have been 7 feet, or just under if not.

Next we wandered the grounds and caught some good doubles (#3 team Knowles and Bhupathi) and caught the last set and a half of Phillipe Kohlshrieber against an Indian qualifier Samdiev Devvarman. Kohlshreiber won fairly easily in terms of the line score but Samdiev put up a huge fight on every point, dragging points to as many as 40 groundstrokes. He was very scrappy.

Then it was into Arthur Ashe Stadium for the end of Shrapova and the Andy Roddick match. Ashe is insane. I haven't been to the Open since the days of Sampras and Aggassi and so have never sat in the monstrosity that is Ashe. It holds nearly 25,000 people and from our vantage point in the uper deck, we could see the action well but didn't feel like we were at a tennis match but rather a Yankees game. The crowd gets pretty into the matches so that's cool. Roddick is in top form and I think he's gona go deep this year. I kind of hope he even wins - he derserves it and is playing so well he just may pull it off. The guys behind us kept catcalling 'Brooklyn' - Roddick's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition model turned wife, Brooklyn Deckert. Funny stuff.

My Dad is funny to watch there. He's not a big fan of waiting on lines, which you have to do a fair bit with the grounds pass, so if you see a middle-aged man running across the grounds to beat the rush into a no-name first round mixed doubes match, it may be him ;-) Good times - a great way to arrive in NYC. Thanks guys!

New Blog Post Anyone?

So I was at an awesome wedding last night (mazal tov Israel and Ariella!) and got several complaints that I haven't blogged in awhile. I've had a backlog of ideas but August is always difficult for me due to work constraints that I wouldn't feel comfortable discussing here (plus some of co-workers read this, hanging onto my every word ;-). Let's just say I pull more than my fair share of overtime in August - that's just how it goes when you care about what you do, how your website comes out, and half the company is on vacation simultaneously.

So I figured I'd throw out there some of the ideas I've been kicking around and let my readers decide which I should pursue next for full-length treatment. After all, at the Common Sensorium, we're all about giving you what you want when you want it. I'll hopefully get to all of these eventually - the question is which should I get cracking on now?

Here's the list of possible topics:

- Awesome gefilte fish by hand recipe and description of process

- Shopping at Mega on Tisha Be'av - a uniquely Israeli experience

- Metzitza Bepeh rant - why moels that perform this disgusting practice are no different than pedophiles

- The NY Giants desperately need WRs if they're to be competative this year

- Legal troubles and Neck pain - a lethal Israeli mix

On a side note, I would like to propose a new definition for the term 'Gross Income' which appears regularly on company financial statements and the like. Henceforth, Gross Income should refer only to Income earned through the performance of disgusting or otherwise unseemly tasks. To me, that's a lot more logical than boring old Income earned before expenses.

I await your votes!

Jerusalem Winefest 2009: Don't Be a Hater

This year's Winefest was awesome as usual - over 35 wineries, some of them introducing new bottles, excellent jazz, great people (especially Benji Feuer - you go girl! ;-) - it's always one of the highlights of the Jerusalem summer calendar for me and Simone. This year we scored free tickets via Simone's gig for Jerusalem.com - all I had to do was pretend to be Ben Jacobson (Yaacovson). Was great also kicking it with Israel, Oren B., Emory and Zelda, Ashkie and her lady friends and of course, Roee. Also there was co-worker Rachel Tova who I saw on back to back nights now - she's friends with some people we know from Nachlaot (a drunken gchat session followed at 1 a.m. or so). One notable absentee was Bron - he'll be back in force next year I'm sure.

Special standout bottles: A newbie (just 3 weeks old) from the Galil Mountain Winery - Meron. Aged in French Oak similar to their Yiron, it's a smooth blend of at least 3 different reds. This winery gets better every year if you ask me. Other highlights included a Binyamina Tarshisha - another blended red that spent 18 months in French Oak. I was also partial (very) to Tabor's sparkling wines - there was a red based with a Merlot and the better of the two was a white based with Gewurtzemeiner. These only had a 9% alcohol content but the pourers were very generous, shall we say, making up in quantity what they may have lacked in quality.

At the Binyamina stand, I had a rather unpleasant experience with a supposedly religious person, who seemed to feel some chumra is more important than the feelings of a fellow Jew, who just happens to have finished up a 3-year stint defending his sorry ass along with the rest of this country's inhabitants.

The story went like this This young man - let's call him Reuven - asked our friendly wine pourer, who we'll call Shimon - if this particular wine was kosher. When Shimon answered in the affirmative, Reuven replied, 'Yes, but is it really kosher?' By this, he meant that since Shimon wasn't wearing a head covering of some sort, Reuven feared Shimon may have secretly sacrificed the bottle of wine he was serving to an idolatrous god.

First of all, the wine was mevushal so Reuven is a moron right out of the gate. But to me, that's completely besides the point so I butted in in my usual fashion, this time armed with a belly full of delicious wine. I explained to Reuven in as uncalm a manner as I could muster why his question was so offensive. 'Shimon just gave up three years defending this country and now you wanna know if he's Jewish enough to pour your wine?' A heated debate ensued. At one point Reuven told me he used to think like me before he saw the light. I responded that I'm no longer stuck in his small-minded box, I've seen the light, and would never go back to being like him (I'm pretty sure I never actually was in that box - my parents raised me better than that ;-)

When it was over, I went back to tasting with Shimon explaining the intricacies of each wine before he poured. I could tell he appreciated my stand - his job didn't permit him to be confrontational. Simone pointed out to me that I was the only one being aggressive and confrontational. She's definitely right about that and there was probably a better way to make my point. That being said though, we at the Common Sensorium hate ideologues. Here was a perfectly nice individual being judged not by the content of his character but simply by his outward appearance. And the judgement being made was a twistedly misguided one. I refuse to allow people to be that offensive without getting a piece of my mind - that's just the way I am.

On the way out, I told a couple that was getting married in a month that maybe they should push the wedding off a bit, make sure they were really 'sure'. As they left, Simone told me it was the guy's second marriage - he had a few kids from the first all of whom got 'dumped' on the wife. If I was Larry David and this was Curb Your Enthusiasm, the guy probably spent a sleepless night considering what I said and broke off the engagement the next morning. It was the drunken rambling part of the night. Maybe I was the hater after all ;-)

Tightening the Social Fabric Some More

I just blogged about how Obama and his policy wonks are trying to rip the social fabric of Jerusalem apart in the name of 'liberal' idealism.

Well here's a quick thought for Bibi and Mayor Nir Barakat if they don't want to see the city divided one day: We need more Arabs in municipal jobs in this city. And by municipal jobs I don't mean street cleaners and construction workers. We need more Arab clerks in the various city offices and agencies, more Arabs in the Fire Dept. and maybe even in the Police Force if the security aspects of that could be adequately worked out through rigorous screening and assigning non-weapons holding jobs.

In fact, Arabs make yup roughly 30% of the city's population - I think we need a program in place that tries to get their representation in municipal jobs to an equal level to their overall demographic numbers. Not only is this the right thing to do, it will go a long way towards assuring a greater participation in the city's civic life and make sure Arab residents are as opposed to splitting this singular city in two as most of Jerusalem's Jewish residents are.

I Want My Vote Back, or, Why the Light Rail Will Keep Jerusalem United

I try not to get too political here - arguing one political side or another is the opposite of common sense and can often be pure verbal masturbation. But Obama has crossed the line. For someone who claims empathy to Jews, demanding only Jews stop building in Jerusalem is the epitome of Chutzpa. Thus far, Obama and his policy wonks have done nothing but set back negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians by choosing to focus entirely on Israel's actions even though we have sought peace incessantly for the last 16 years and counting, and building up Palestinian expectations to unrealistic levels so that Mahmoud Abbas now refuses to meet with Netanyahu despite numerous exhortations from Bibi. Furthermore, Obama has failed to draw distinctions between the West Bank and Jerusalem leading to the alienation of even most of the Israeli Left (not that there was much of one left after 16 years of Palestinian rejectionism in the face of countless peace offers).

We pray facing the Temple Mount, Muslims turn their backs to it and face Mecca. Jerusalem isn't even their 2nd holiest city and when they last had control of our holy sites, we were denied access to them and were forced to liberate them in a heavy price of blood in a war we preferred not to fight.

Re-dividing Jerusalem is the worst possible solution ot the current conflict. For someone who claims to be a unifier, Obama sure seems to want to put up a lot of walls and boundries between Israelis and Palestinians. The good news is we don't give a shit what he thinks anymore. So he can continue to verbally masturbate all he wants.

Driving on Bar-Lev Street, bringing my brother back to his dorm where he's taking Arabic at Hebrew U. this summer, driving on what was the old border until 1967, past the site of Old Mandelbaum Gate, passing Nablus Road, Salah Din Street, Damascus gate and the Old City walls and back to my neighborhood in East Talpiot south of the Old City, I get a veritable history lesson several times a week. With the Big O ordering us not to build in Jerusalem anymore until he says we can (unclear if he will ever give us that green light again), it dawned on me that the new light rail system which is slated to run down the very street that used to divide the two peoples that inhabit this great city has the purpose of uniting us for once and all. For no one in their right mind would build a train and spend 100s of millions of dollars on what will ultimately turn out to be a border street. The plan is simple: keep the city united, 'whole', continue bringing people together - Jews, Muslims and Christians - make the social fabric deeper, more intertwined. Build a state of the art transportation system on the street that used to divide us, for the use of all the city's inhabitants.

That's what Jerusalem ('Yeru-Shalem') means - 'city of peace' but more accurately also united city. If you think about, calling a city the 'united' (or 'whole', 'complete') city is an odd thing to do - but it isn't if you know the history. People have been trying to unite this city for 3,000 years, from the time the Jebusties lived here and King David tried to unite it up until today.

And now obama wants to put a wall up between people and keep them separated. How very liberal and enlightened of him - it worked really well in Berlin. If it's a lack of knowledge of the other that is primarily responsible for creating a level of fear and animosity between disparate peoples, how can we overcome that with a wall between us?

And this really is one unified city. I walk on the Tayelet near my house, overlooking the Dome of the Rock and Temple Mount, and the Arab ladies from the next neighborhood remark at how cute my son Erez is. It's a favorite picnic spot for both Jews and Arabs - should one of those people no longer be allowed to congregate there in the name of peace? I've experienced only pleasantness there - no violence or hatred. The guy who often fixes various problems in our apartment, Atlee, lives in East Jerusalem - maybe he shouldn't be allowed into this side of the city anymore to earn an honest day's wage. Instead he should only know Jews as people on the other side of a fence, and believe whatever lies he hears because he has no first hand knowledge of the other to combat them. And the same goes for any Arab-hating Jews out there who at least now have the benefit of seeing and interacting with the 'other' on a regular basis to combat their ignorant hatred.

When I studied in Ulpan (intensive Hebrew language seminar) after moving here, I befriended several Arab students in my class who were preparing to enter Israeli universities or technical schools. At the time I worked at the Jerusalem Report magazine and penned a piece asking the city not to cut funding to our Ulpan since it served as a bridge between Jerusalemite Jews and Arabs. The city ultimately decided the program was too valuable to cut. If Obama has his way, no Arab and Jewish members of Jerusalem will ever interact again. How very liberal and enlightened of the Great Unifier.

Life Can Be Cruel

So I was at the funeral of my Mom's first cousin today (i.e. my first cousin once removed). She passed away yesterday after collapsing from a heart attack. She had been having symptoms for a month leading up to yesterday, was told to see a cardiologist which she never did, had several of the risk factors, etc. but none of this is the point. Rivka was, in my brief encounters with her, a very sweet woman, very dedicated to her parents and kids, a proud grandmother, and as a fellow member of her moshav, Benaya, said today, 'Maleh anivut ve'tzniut' ('extremely humble/unassuming and modest').

What made me really sad was seeing my great aunt, Erzika (that's Hungarian in case you're wondering). Her husband passed away 10 months ago at the ripe old age of 90. Now she lost her only child. I noticed the tattooed number on her arm at the funeral. Also, I noticed on Dod Yaakov's (her late husband's) gravestone that his mother's name was Rivka too. So this daughter of theirs, their only child, has the namesake of her paternal grandmother who I imagine perished in the holocaust (actually my mom tells me she passed away before when Dod Yaakov was very young).

Instead of some sense of comfort in her old age, Doda (aunt) Erzika has had her husband of nearly 60 years and her only child pass away - and suddenly at that - in less than a year's time. It's more than anyone should have to bear. May she know only comfort from now on.

Tennis as a Metaphor for Life?

Just finished watching another fantastic Wimbledon final (who thought you could top last year's Federer-Nadal epic?!) - definitely one for the ages. Federer finally passed Pete Sampras for most major championships ever, but not before a 16-14 5th set thriller against a resurgent Andy Roddick (who definitely wins the hotter wife competition vs. Roger in straight sets). Watched with my brother Mo (who I watched almost the entire fortnight with - was awesome not having to watch most of those matches alone, and with someone who really understands the game), Ben Feuer (of Jerusalem Pridefest 2009 reporting fame) and was in phone contact with my brother Yaakov in NY, BRon, Oren Nidam and Jason Rousman at various points throughout the match.

Is tennis, or sports in general, really a metaphor for life? I always thought this notion was kind of silly while enjoying it at the same time. If it's true, what's the message?

Well, if you're Roger Federer, the message is a simple uplifting one: keep trying, give it your all and even if it seems doubtful or bleak at times, you'll always somehow come out on top.

If you're Andy Roddick, the message may not be as fun or uplifting: No matter how hard you try at something, or how much you improve yourself, there will always be someone just a tiny bit better than you to put you in your place.

Personally, I would have been happy to be in Roddick's shoes. I play tennis every week pretty consistently and while I think I can string a good point or game together, I don't have the psychological fortitude to win point after point in tough spots like both Federer and Roddick did time and time again today. Sometimes, the best you can hope for is to throw it all on the line, give it your all, and hope that's enough to somehow achieve the result you want.

In sports, it doesn't really matter if that end result is winning or losing. And I find in life it often doesn't matter either - the effort and intensity you bring is what ultimately determines how you feel about it - not the end result. I hope Andy Roddick takes some comfort in that when he looks back at today's match for the ages. He couldn't have possibly given more of himself and that's got to be worth something. A hell of a lot, actually.
ESPN's Greg Garber sums things up really nicely here...

Gay Yartzeit Pics and Commentary - Thanks Big Gay Ben

So I promised to provide pics from Thursday's Gay Yartzeit. Here they are courtesy of 'Big Gay' Ben Feuer (formerly 'Big' Ben Feuer, aka Benjamin Bluebeard) (Ben's not really gay but he took on this persona for Thursday's event to get an 'inside' view of things). He's actually very much available for any ladies that have loose morals and are looking to party (0527864349).


'Queens on King David Street', where Israelite Kings once ruled.
Two revelers dressed up as border policemen.
Israel has no 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy and as such, lesbians are integral part of our armed forces.

Trannies galore! No LGBT event is complete without 'em.
The sign reads 'I don't tell you how to live!' A religious participant with a pink yarmulke. Big Ben reported that there were several religious gay groups that participated - only in Jerusalem!
Rainbow flag with Israeli flag superimposed in corner. New national flag candidate?
An overview of the procession.

Thanks Ben and good luck with the ladies!

Gay Yartzeit

Happy Gay Yartzeit everyone from Jerusalem! We have two excellent events overlapping today in the holy city: The Lubavitcher Rebbe's Yartzeit and Gay Pride Parade. So I'll be lounging with vodka and midori sours, checking out all the hot guys shuckling back and forth, and marching to the beat of meshichist sexual liberation. I'm talking the Rebbe in a rainbow-colored bekeshe, men's only simcha dancing and pronouncing things with a Yiddish sounding lisp.

Common Sensorium correspondent 'Big' Ben Feuer will be there capturing it all on film. Hopefully I'll have some videos for ya'll early next week. So let your freak (rainbow/mashiach) flag fly, because days like this don't come around very often!

Time to Teach Irresponsible Dog Owners a Lesson!

It happened again on Friday. I stepped in dog shit! This is the 2nd time this has happened in a month. You'd think I'd be used to steering clear of dog poop growing up in Riverdale - the dog shit capital of the world. But no dice. I'm pretty sure my current neighborhood - Jerusalem's East Talpiot is the dog shit capital of Jerusalem. And our street is hands down the dog shit capital of E. Talpiot. So if you ever visit Rechov Mordechai Elkachi, you need to seriously watch out.

Walking home from Shabbat lunch, I bitched about Dog shit and the kind of sociopaths that let an animal relieve itself pretty much where ever it pleases until Simone had to cut me off and say why don't you blog about it - I really don't want to hear any more about dog shit. Plus my almost 3 year old, Erez, was starting to use the term too.

But seriously, what kind of person let's their dog shit in the public domain? Is it just laziness, or is it their way of giving society a big middle finger. And I bet people that let their dogs shit in the middle of the sidewalk never step in it themselves, in the same way a thief is much less likely to get robbed. It's only us poor unsuspecting saps that don't think to look out for it that end up tracking it up 52 stairs across their dining room and kitchen 15 minutes before the guests show up for Mexican Friday night (which by the way was awesome - Ben, Bron and Michal, I want my half a bottle of tequila back ;-).

Anyway, the next time you see a dog shitting mid-sidewalk, owner by its side, not a care in the world, walk up to them and ask them if they were planning on cleaning that up? When they say no, grab the nearest plastic bag, scoop it up and start chasing them down the street with it (not recommended where there is a pit-bull or rottweiler involved). Another alternative is to follow them home and bring your 3 year old to their front door for a potty training session. I guarantee that will be one dog that doesn't shit mid-sidewalk ever again.

A Fascist Iran and Its American Enablers

No surprises here really. After a reasonably worded editorial Sunday slamming Iran's sham elections (Neither Real Nor Free), the Times ended with this brilliant piece of logic:

We know that some in this country and in Israel will say that this election is proof that there can be no dealing with Iran and that military action is the only choice. The last thing the United States or Israel needs is another war with a Muslim state. An attack would only feed Iran’s nuclear ambitions and spur it to take even greater efforts to hide its program.

The only choice is negotiations backed by credible incentives and tough sanctions. Even if the mullahs had allowed Mr. Moussavi to win, that would still be true.

Neville Chamberlain would be proud. If Obama and co. can just find their Sudentenland to mollify the mullahs with, it can be 1938 all over again, Ahmedenijad can be named Time's Man of the Year, and Obama can declare Peace in Our Time for once and all.

The thing is, I like Obama in general. I think he's thoughtful and does genuinely respect other people's opinions. But on certain issues, his moral relativisivism is downright dangerous. He praised the 'vigorous' debate taking place in Iran leading up to Friday's election but as of Monday, he had said nothing condemning the result or to offer support to the defrauded voters - the very people he claims to want to help stand up for freedom. His silence at this moment is downright shameful. Any notion of engagement under this pretext is doomed to fail. All it will do is create a nice photo op for the mullahs and their lackey Ahmedenijad to sound contrite while the centrifuges whirl and they continue to foment Islamist revolution in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Enter Roger Cohen. He offered a worthless apology Sunday for pegging Iran wrong (Iran's Day of Anguish):

I’ve argued for engagement with Iran and I still believe in it, although, in the name of the millions defrauded, President Obama’s outreach must now await a decent interval.

I’ve also argued that, although repressive, the Islamic Republic offers significant margins of freedom by regional standards. I erred in underestimating the brutality and cynicism of a regime that understands the uses of ruthlessness.

Cohen spent the months leading up to the fraudulent election having a virtual verbal love affair with the Iran and its repressive regime. He even claimed Jews have it well there. And he routinely accused Israel of fear mongering when it came to Iran's nuclear program. In his mind, Israel was far more of a threat to world peace than the mullahs.

Christopher Hitchens penned an excellent piece for Slate Sunday called "Don't Call What Happened in Iran Last Week an Election," in which he built up to this climactic ending:

Mention of the Lebanese elections impels me to pass on what I saw with my own eyes at a recent Hezbollah rally in south Beirut, Lebanon. In a large hall that featured the official attendance of a delegation from the Iranian Embassy, the most luridly displayed poster of the pro-Iranian party was a nuclear mushroom cloud! Underneath this telling symbol was a caption warning the "Zionists" of what lay in store. We sometimes forget that Iran still officially denies any intention of acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet Ahmadinejad recently hailed an Iranian missile launch as a counterpart to Iran's success with nuclear centrifuges, and Hezbollah has certainly been allowed to form the idea that the Iranian reactors may have nonpeaceful applications. This means, among other things, that the vicious manipulation by which the mullahs control Iran can no longer be considered their "internal affair." Fascism at home sooner or later means fascism abroad. Face it now or fight it later. Meanwhile, give it its right name.

It's time for the Times and Obama to call a spade a spade: the Iranians are fascists, and obsessed with Israel's destruction in a Nazi-like way. You can't negotiate with fascists - plain and simple. You can only deal with them through force. It's unfortunate and painful - but ignoring the truth only means you have to confront them down the road when they are stronger and even more brazen. It took Europe too long to learn this painful lesson in the 1930s. The Times and Obama still haven't learnt it - they instead have taken on the role of being Iran's enablers.

The famous saying deserves a mention here: All that is required for evil to flourish in the world is for good men to do nothing. I do believe Obama is a good man and that the people at the NY Times mean well (maybe not Roger Cohen ;-)

And I'm sure after Iran deploys its first nukes, we can all count on a nice sentence-long apology from Roger Cohen and the official editorial in the NY Times. Let's hope Obama wakes up and grows a pair before it comes to that.

It's not all bad...

Just saw this story in the Jerusalem Post.

Palestinians from the village of Tuqu' on Tuesday helped rescue a Jewish resident of the nearby settlement of Tekoa and her 4-month-old son after their car overturned on the main road of the village...

The man added that he did not hesitate before rushing to the aid of the woman, despite the feelings of enmity between settlers and Arabs.

"The human concern overcame any other feeling, as well as the feelings of enmity and hatred that the settlers arouse in the area," he said.

The village is the site of frequent clashes between Palestinians and IDF soldiers, as well as stoning attacks against Israeli vehicles.

Earlier I had blogged about A Good Deed Repaid with Hate. Just goes to show... there are good people everywhere and some sort of peace between people with little in common and conflicting demands and needs is possible.
Here's to One Love! Jah Bless! Pray we find a way to replace anger with love and acts of hate with loving kindness.

I Heart Tour (and the people that make it so damn great!)

I freekin love tour! We're happy to be back in Jerusalem of course but our 6-night love-in with Phish was as good as could be in every possible way, more than anything because of the people. Old friends and new ones, family and phamily. And of course the music. Sunday night in Camden NJ was the best in terms of that - great setlist, excellent jams (especially Sand!), incredible vibes.

Here's a perfect example of all the people: First of all, our crew was me, Simone, Zohara (her first show - yay!), my brother Hillel and my sister Sara. My brother Mo was on his way down with his friends, all hitting their first show and scoring face value tix no problem (screw you scalpers!). On our way down, we stopped for gas and to feed Zohara and the rest area off the NJ Turnpike was jammed with phans. There we ran into Gorf and Ben Feuer's crew. They thought it was great Ben was staying in our place in Jerusalem at that very moment. Within minutes of getting back on the road, we passed the Hood milk truck ('You can feel good about Hood') - it was a definite sign from above (the truck was about twice the height of our Nissan Quest).

Pulled into the lots and after a hassle finding a good parking spot, hooked up for a killer bbq with Eytan (Bayme), Ruby, Zaki and Fromm. Thanks Mom and Dad - we used their account at riverdale's finest Kosher meat shop (Noah's) - steaks, burgers, spicey sausage, even veggie burgers for Sara and Turkey legs for Hill. Later Ami Foger and my brother Mo met up with us. Ran into Shosh Pincus there too. Great top shelf bar in back of Eytan's trunk ;-)

Once inside we settled in to the back of the lawn and who should we see but our old friends Marla and Mitch there with their baby as well. We proceeded to spend almost the entire show with them. Our section was filled with babies and little kids. At first glance it wouldn't seem like a very family friendly environment but it actually is. People really look out for each other (stranger stopping stranger... wait, wrong band ;-) ) .

Mo loved his first show. So did Zohara (As a first time bonus, she also got a free A Capella/vocal jam from Hillel and Naftali on the ride home). Simone loved her first run. I feared it would be nothing more than a nostalgia trip but it was a whole bag of new and wonderful experiences. I can't wait to do it all again! Maybe next time we'll bring Erez too.

Some Things in Life Are Just Good...

This thought occurred to me during the end of first set of last night's Phish show at Jones Beach - my first in 5 years (and only the band's 5th after a 5 year hiatus) - and stayed with me for the rest of the show. The vibes were fantastic from our arrival at Jones Beach till we got into our car to head home, security didn't hassle people for the most part, and the phans were as friendly as I remember them to have ever been.

Saw Many old friends I haven't seen in years - Andrew K. and his beautiful wife Jennifer, who we met for the first time. Mike P. and his awesome wife Miriam who was at her first show just like Simone. My sister Sara was in the section right next to us and we randomly ran into others we new in a past life (Ari White, Dale, Mayer B-D).

Sitting as high up as we were, we could see the entire crowd swaying and bouncing like a wave to each change in the rhythm or turn in a jam. Harry Hood and If I Could were especially beautiful, Mike's Groove was tight, Timber was a nice surprise and Lovin' Cup summed things up perfectly (What a beautiful buzz what a beautiful buzz). I liked the new song in the first set (Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan) - the chorus was 'There's a blank space where my brain's supposed to me' -nice and introspective.

People right near us brought their 10 month old baby which made us think of bringing Zohara on Thursday - was a bit loud for a baby i fear (there were several other kids Erez's age too). I could see Mike and Miriam grooving in the 2nd row with my binoculars - they were really cute and very into it. Page sounded great all night, Trey's new sobriety fit him well (despite the demi-god camera work on the Hood ambient jam ;-), Mike still wears goofy clothes and Fishman's drumming employed all 4 of his limbs plus that silly dress he now wears with an undershirt underneath.

It was Simone's first show and she had the best time! At one point she turned to me and said 'This is the most fun I've had in as long as I can remember.' And that's what it's really all about - good clean fun and feeling the oneness of everything. Last night was quintessential Phish - the vibes, the scents and subtle sounds, the beautiful surroundings and people. Some things in life are just good I guess...

A Good Deed, Repaid with Hate

As I'm sure you've read, my shul I grew up in, the Riverdale Jewish Center was the target of an attempted (and thankfully foiled) attack by 4 muslim men yesterday.

My brother Yaakov had an interesting take of why these men would have chosen the RJC. Several months back, our shul, led by Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt, agreed to provide a place to pray for a young muslim girl who attended the local Jr. High across the street and who had nowhere to worship as she chose during school hours. The story was initially picked up by the Riverdale Press and then eventually by the NY Times culminating in a high profile visit from Mayor Bloomberg.

The terrorists must have seen the reports of this and rather than realize the flaws in their worldview on Jews and non-muslims, viewed it as some sort of affront, or maybe even felt our shul was trying to subvert young muslims in some way. An act of kindness repaid with hate. Islam has a lot to answer for these days - this is unfortunately only the latest such example.

Trying to Beat the Market? Don't Bother

Index Universe - a great resource for ETF and mutual fund investors - just put out an analysis of the latest Standard & Poor's Index Versus Active Fund Scorecard and the results aren't pretty. According to Index Universe,

The new report shows that 71.9% of actively managed large-cap funds trailed the S&P 500; 75.9% of actively managed mid-cap funds trailed the S&P MidCap 400; and a stunning 85.5% of actively managed small-cap funds trailed the S&P SmallCap 600.

S&P says the results were consistent with the previous five-year cycle, from 1999 to 2003.

The article goes on to describe what can really only be described as pathetic performance of active mutual funds across various market cap sizes, global funds (including emerging markets where the performance of actively managed funds was especially attrocious compared to their index peers) and the bond market. One notable exception to the general rule of underperformance came in the high yield bond market. Other than that, the performance of actively managed funds vs. their passively indexed peers was either bad or awful.

Which leads me to wonder: Why does anyone bother trying to beat the market? Or to focus that, it's one thing for the pros to try - they have to believe they do what they do because they're really good at it (even if that's clearly not true year in and out). But why do individual, amateur investors try to beat the market? It seems like an excersize in futility at best and more likely than not, a surefire way to underperform the markets.

The bottom line is this: the average retail investor would be much better served buying the right mix of assets through low priced ETFs (expense ratios are the one factor most investors can - and often fail to - control). In addition to the added free time they'll gain (don't they say that time is money), they can rest assured they won't be underperforming the markets. Then they can spend their time evaluating what level of risk they can tolerate - something which came as a shock to many who thought it was much higher than it really was during the recent downturn. Switching into low-risk bonds when they Dow fell below 10,000 would have been a much more fruitful strategy for most than trying to outmaneuver a sinking ship of a market over the last year and a half.

Obama Goes 3 for 3

Three different pieces of seemingly unconnected news struck me as promising on the foreign policy front today.

First, this editorial by Halil M. Karaveli in the Jerusalem Post notes an interesting and surprising change in Obama's approach to radical Islam. As I know from spending nearly a month in Turkey during the summer of 2004, the secular-religious divide in that country is particularly fierce. Karaveli outlines how Bush's approach to contending with radical Islam was to hold up the 'relative' moderate Turkish Islamist ruling party as an example for the Muslim world. This had the effect of placing Turkey's avid secularists into a bind.

On his recent trip to Ankara, where Obama addressed Turkey's parliament, Obama reached out to secularists by speaking about "secular democracy" as "the greatest monument to Atatürk's life." According to the author:

Obama's tributes to the secularist revolutionary were not bows dictated by diplomatic etiquette to the founding father of a host country, but politically charged interventions in the ongoing debate about secularism and Islam. Indeed, his words were near-affronts to the belief held by Islamic conservatives and liberals - the alliance which dominates Turkish public discourse - that the introduction of secularist reforms was a traumatic event.

So much for Republican hysteria that Obama would be the 'great champion of Islam'.

The other two pieces to catch my eye came from Bloomberg. The first refers to the President's refusal to lift the embargo on Cuba despite internal pressure to do so. It should be noted Obama has loosened many of the regulations barring commerce between the U.S. and the Communist dictatorship to our south. But this doesn't mean he's ready for a full normalization of relations. As the article states:

Any further thaw in relations will depend on what Cuban President Raul Castro does to provide greater economic and civil rights for Cubans, according to the administration.

“Actions speak louder than words,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

Finally, there was this piece outlining the U.S.'s decision to boycott the sham Durban II conference 'against' racism. Despite some 'improvements' in the draft document, the State Dept. felt not nearly enough progress was made to justify U.S. involvement. As the Department's Robert Wood pointed out:

“The DDPA singles out one particular conflict and prejudges key issues that can only be resolved in negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians,” acting U.S. State Department spokesman Robert A. Wood said in a statement. “The United States also has concerns with relatively new additions to the text regarding ‘incitement,’ that run counter to the U.S. commitment to unfettered free speech.”

In all three instances, Obama has shown his dedication to the values of secular democracy, regardless of the region or religion involved and how his actions could be perceived by the U.S.'s critics and bashers abroad. He has shows impressive moral clarity thus far, offering olive branches when possible but holding firm to America's (and clearly his own) core values. Far from being some post-modernist aberration, he has made a serious effort to return American prestige to the global stage without compromising America's vital interests. It leaves me rather hopeful he will deal with both Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a similar fashion, diverging from his predecessor when he smells the chance at progress, but without compromising either American or Israeli vital interests.

Blessing the Sun... Jahruzalem Stylee

So Birkat Hachama (the blessing on the sun) is just once every 28 years - I was one the last time it took place. I caught it on the Tayelet overlooking the old city of Jerusalem. There were literally hundreds of people there with guitars and drums singing and dancing at 7:15 a.m. - quite a site to behold.

Here's a great article on the miscalculations over the actual date and the deep significance of the event nonetheless. Birkat Hachama is an event that the Common Sensorium particularly likes as there's no ideology involved and no hidden agenda - just a recognition of a natural, if slightly miscalculated, phenomenon without which life on earth would be utterly impossible.

This is the view we had from the tayelet, more or less, though about a kilometer further back.
Overlooking the sun-like dome of the mosque on the temple mount gave the event a special significance. It's sun-like features gave my prayers a point of reference - an earthly orb to face and mirror the heavenly one just to my right. I find it ironic that Muslims turn their back to the Dome of the Rock when praying.

Also, it occurred to me that our newly born daughter was named Zohara (shining - in the talmud (according to Jastrow) a variation is 'Zaharei Chama' meaning the 'rays of the sun') in part because she was born so close to this extremely rare ritual (Simone always says names are part prophecy).

Here's the playlist I'm listening to in honor of international 'sun day'. Note it has 28 tracks - one for each year of the cycle (plus the 29th track 'Here Comes the Night' as a nice epilogue).

click to enlarge

Enjoy and cherish the sun - in a few million (or is that billion) years, we won't have it anymore!