Because if you do, you definitely don't want to be in Israel right now. The hate-filled muslim masses that surround this region's only non-muslim state (a state lived in by Jews 1,500 years before the advent of Islam) are no closer to accepting non-muslims in their backyard now then they were when they tried to drive us into the sea shortly after the U.N. voted to partition part of this land to us 65 years ago.
Just for the fear-minded non-Islamists among you, those who can't understand why anyone would want to live in a war zone, even if it is their historic right to live there, I've come up with some other places that aren't safe. Avoid these places at all costs: the scary Islamo-fascist boogieman may target you there. After all, they have in the past. Or they've tried to. And if someone scary targets you, it's always best to simply give in. You certainly wouldn't want to make them mad.
1) Avoid countries with large muslim populations - from Bali to India to Istanbul to Cairo, non-muslims and moderate muslims have been targeted across the muslim world. If you're the type that prefers to run away from evil and anything scary, I suggest you avoid these places at all costs.
2) Avoid New York City - the largest terrorist attack in modern history
occurred there and there have been several other plots foiled there. Who
know when the next successful one will be?
3) Avoid large European cities: London, Madrid, Amsterdam, Moscow - the list of places attacked by islamists across the European continent stretches on and on. And the next attack is just as likely to take place in a city that hasn't been targeted before as it is in one that has. They like to keep the element of surprise at play.
4) Avoid non-muslim places of worship - especially synagogues. Islamists have plotted to blow up houses of worship the world over (and occasionally succeeded). Do you really think one empty cop car parked outside your synagogue on the high holidays will foil an enemy determined to kill above all else?
5) Avoid flying - 9/11 may have culminated in NY and DC but the planes were hijacked from a variety of places. And the news is constantly filled with stories of muslim terrorists plotting attacks on airplanes. Just to be safe, avoid the aviation industry entirely.
6) Avoid western countries with large muslim populations - while most muslims aren't terrorists, most terrorists that have plotted against western targets have been muslim, of the fundamentalist variety. And just because they haven't managed to successfully kill a bunch of innocent civilians in your country yet, doesn't mean they haven't been trying. Australia, Canada, Germany - these places and many others may not have been successfully attacked yet but that's only because local law enforcement has broken up numerous plots to attack innocent civilians. I say better safe than sorry.
So there you have it. I hear we'll be colonizing the moon within a century or so. So if you just hold out, you may finally be able to escape those scary Islamists for once and all. Because right or wrong, who wants to live in fear? It's best to just run and hide.
Me - I'm sick of running and hiding. I've been doing that for 2 millennia. So I'll just stay right where I am. Where would I go anyway?
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Feeling Saucy? Come for the Vermouth, Stay for the Anus
You gotta love the lack of spellchecking on English signs in Israel but this one was a classic - even for here.
From our drink menu on Saturday (photo taken by my sister Sara):
click to enlarge
As they say around these parts, L'Chaim! Drink Up!
From our drink menu on Saturday (photo taken by my sister Sara):
click to enlarge
As they say around these parts, L'Chaim! Drink Up!
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Fun With Popular Expressions
Here at the Common Sensorium we like to turn common sense on its head. In that light, I've been playing around with popular expressions lately during some of my spare thinking time (that's about 7 minutes a day for those of you counting) and came up with this list (some of which are admittedly just downright silly and some of which I've heard before and just can't remember from where):
- Religion is the opiate of the masses - except in China, where Opium is the opiate of the masses
- Why buy the cow if you can have sex with it for free? (Gabe P. astutely points out this is from Mallrats)
- 1 in the bush is better than 2 hand jobs
- Bigger bang for your fuck
- A Pap Smear a day means the doctor is gay
- Revenge is a dish best served before dessert
- Up shit's creek without any toilet paper
- Absynthe makes the heart grow drunker
- Don't bite the dick that fucks you (HT David Allan Coe)
- This just in from Ben Feuer: Vermouth shall set you free
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
The Latest 'Fun' From Tahrir Square
Jeff Goldberg brings us the latest 'fun' from Cairo:
http://www.theatlantic.com/
For those people still clinging to the dream, despite reality intervening in the ensuing 18 months, that the Arab spring was actually a good thing, it's time to admit that maybe the mass of Egyptians aren't ready for democracy, to respect minority (including women's rights) and that it's safe to say now that they've elected an islamist president and parliament that things will be considerably worse for the masses there (largely a result of their own doing).
Before Mubarak was deposed, they had less freedom: less freedom to rape, pillage, rob, murder, harass. I spent a week in Cairo in 1999 and this sort of thing never could have happened then. Arab societies seem to breed a disdain for the other, be they Coptic Christians, Jews, their own women, Westerners. That doesn't bode well for a true democracy (a system that affects people daily and not just when they vote once a decade), where everyone's rights are respected both in creed and deed
P.S. As my colleague Michael Lipkin says, "There's nothing more dangerous than 10th century morality combined with 21st century technology."
http://www.theatlantic.com/
For those people still clinging to the dream, despite reality intervening in the ensuing 18 months, that the Arab spring was actually a good thing, it's time to admit that maybe the mass of Egyptians aren't ready for democracy, to respect minority (including women's rights) and that it's safe to say now that they've elected an islamist president and parliament that things will be considerably worse for the masses there (largely a result of their own doing).
Before Mubarak was deposed, they had less freedom: less freedom to rape, pillage, rob, murder, harass. I spent a week in Cairo in 1999 and this sort of thing never could have happened then. Arab societies seem to breed a disdain for the other, be they Coptic Christians, Jews, their own women, Westerners. That doesn't bode well for a true democracy (a system that affects people daily and not just when they vote once a decade), where everyone's rights are respected both in creed and deed
P.S. As my colleague Michael Lipkin says, "There's nothing more dangerous than 10th century morality combined with 21st century technology."
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Purim Mix 2012 - Who'll Stop The Rain?
So I like to get thematic in my purim mixes. This great tradition has been carried down from the generations, starting with my father in maybe the late 70s (if I had to guess an exact date). This year's theme is 'Who'll Stop The Rain?' after what is probably the 'wettest' winter I've ever experienced anywhere. Now I'm sure the authorities will still claim that with all the rain and flooding we got here in Israel, we barely made a dent in the national water deficit. That's little consolation though for someone whose apartment walls and ceiling are still drying out 4 full days after being battered by half a meter of rain in 4 days.
My mixes follow a general logic - bring 'em in with upbeat tunes that aren't too pumped up, gradually ease into the central theme, then close strong with pumped up jams.
Here goes (click for bigger view):
Happy Purim to one and all!
My mixes follow a general logic - bring 'em in with upbeat tunes that aren't too pumped up, gradually ease into the central theme, then close strong with pumped up jams.
Here goes (click for bigger view):
Happy Purim to one and all!
Friday, January 13, 2012
In Case There Was Any Doubt As To The Nerdiness/Intelligence Of Phish Fans...
This discussion is currently raging on the message boards on Phish.net, the band's largest fan site: http://blog.phish.net/1326056166/a-few-choice-words-on-scalpin
Most band fan sites would just complain about exorbitant scalping prices and that would be the end of it. But Phish fans have to get into a discussion about the history of scalping in the U.S. dating back to pre-civil war times, particularly Charles Dickens' 1851 book reading tour. The annecdote about Madison Square Garden colluding with scalpers in the early 20th century is also pretty darn amusing - the more things change the more they stay the same.
Most band fan sites would just complain about exorbitant scalping prices and that would be the end of it. But Phish fans have to get into a discussion about the history of scalping in the U.S. dating back to pre-civil war times, particularly Charles Dickens' 1851 book reading tour. The annecdote about Madison Square Garden colluding with scalpers in the early 20th century is also pretty darn amusing - the more things change the more they stay the same.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Saying Goodbye To A Most Incredibly Independent Babi
When I was younger - maybe 7 or 8 - and first got into some mischief for being a 'wise guy' in class, I assumed I had naturally inherited such behavior from my father, who had gotten into similar trouble at that age. As I got a bit older, I realized my Babi - my mother's mother - who was then a spry 73 or so, deserved at least as much credit for my rebellious streak.
Considering many of the trials, tribulations and tragedies she had to endure in her lifetime, her fierce independence to the very end - her utter refusal to let life kick her when she was down - is probably the thing that most fascinates and amazes me about her to this day. It's what I'll miss the most about her. I figured I'd reflect on it since she passed away a few weeks before her 97th birthday this past Friday.
My Babi was a Holocaust survivor but her independent streak seems to have existed long before the Nazis invaded Hungary in March 1944, when she was almost 30, and newly wed (getting married in your late 20s in that time period was alone a statement of her independance). In fact, it's likely the reason she survived an ordeal that saw so many of her family members perish.
Growing up in the town of Sátoraljaújhely in Northeast Hungary, Babi didn't see her father from 1914, the outbreak of WWI, when she was just an infant, until 1919, when the war ended. Her family was religiously defined as 'Status quo' which was some Hungarian Jewish equivalent of modern orthodox in America today. In a surviving picture we have that was taken in 1928 or 1929, her father is wearing a simple hat and her two older brothers and dapperly dressed, with their heads uncovered. She attended 'Gymnasia', the local non-sectarian Jewish school, through just 4th grade, as was standard for girls at that time.
Her first husband, who died in Budapest in late 1944 and is buried in a mass grave in the Dohein temple, wasn't a particularly religious man. He certainly didn't put on tefillin (phylacteries) on a regular basis - an act which is considered a daily staple of an orthodox Jewish lifestyle. If not for the war, she never would have ended up with my zeidy (grandfather in yiddish), who was from a hasidic family (he stopped wearing hasidic garb after the war but remained deeply religious). Though they grew up in the same small town in Hungary, their paths most certainly would have never crossed.
Babi's father passed away of natural causes in March 1944. She travelled from Budapest, where she lived with her husband, whom she had been married to for a couple of years at most, to sit shiva in Sátoraljaújhely at her parents house. In the middle of the shiva, her husband called her and told her to leave at once as word had spread that the Nazis had invaded Hungary. So she attempted to board the next train to Budapest. As she arrived at the train station in Sátoraljaújhely, the local anti-semitic authorities were separating out the Jewish passengers, forcing them to remain in the town until they could be deported to Auschwitz. Babi was unaware of this but saw a long line by the main entrance to the station and in her typical independent mindset, snuck in through a back entrance to the station and onto the train out of the city. When she returned to her neighborhood in Budapest later that day, her friends couldn't believe she had made it back from the countryside unscathed.
Babi didn't much like discussing most of her war experiences - she believed in living in the present and harping on it could send her into a deep depression (my mom says Babi once stayed in bed for 3 days straight after she brought her to see a play her class was doing about the Eichman trial). The stories she did have were mostly disjointed - a snippet here, and anecdote there. We know Raul Wallenberg pulled her off a transit at some point and saved her, as he did for many of Budapest's Jews. Above all, Babi would not be defined as a victim despite her harrowing war stories. We never thought of her as a victim - someone that strong never could be one.
Even in her later years when she had Alzheimer's and rarely recognized her grandchildren, she was always quick with a joke or a sly remark. On my last visit to her in May, she quipped to Simone that she was very chinosh (skinny in Hungarian). Then she turned her glance to me and a quipped, "him not so much."
One other story I'm reminded of is from when I was 14. I decided to stay in camp for a 2nd month and skip my family's vacation so my friend Jonah Lowenfeld joined in my place. Babi felt this young man was very rude - at one point she slapped him after he tried to pour wine for my father without 'permission'. That was my Babi though; if she thought you were wrong, she said so. There was no pretense with her.
Looking at pictures on Saturday night with my Mom and brother Hillel, there Babi was at every one of our graduations, always smiling and just happy to be there to witness such a momentous occasion. She always mentioned with pride that my mother always brought home straight A's - this was still an incredible point of pride decades later. Our graduations were the perfect confluence of events as Babi truly valued family and education above all else precisely because of the personal independence those two things offer. With a strong education, she believed life's doors were opened up for you. With a strong family to support you through thick and thin, you could go out and be yourself to the world every day without worrying too much about being judged. In know Babi never did.
Pictures of Babi from this May
Considering many of the trials, tribulations and tragedies she had to endure in her lifetime, her fierce independence to the very end - her utter refusal to let life kick her when she was down - is probably the thing that most fascinates and amazes me about her to this day. It's what I'll miss the most about her. I figured I'd reflect on it since she passed away a few weeks before her 97th birthday this past Friday.
My Babi was a Holocaust survivor but her independent streak seems to have existed long before the Nazis invaded Hungary in March 1944, when she was almost 30, and newly wed (getting married in your late 20s in that time period was alone a statement of her independance). In fact, it's likely the reason she survived an ordeal that saw so many of her family members perish.
Growing up in the town of Sátoraljaújhely in Northeast Hungary, Babi didn't see her father from 1914, the outbreak of WWI, when she was just an infant, until 1919, when the war ended. Her family was religiously defined as 'Status quo' which was some Hungarian Jewish equivalent of modern orthodox in America today. In a surviving picture we have that was taken in 1928 or 1929, her father is wearing a simple hat and her two older brothers and dapperly dressed, with their heads uncovered. She attended 'Gymnasia', the local non-sectarian Jewish school, through just 4th grade, as was standard for girls at that time.
Her first husband, who died in Budapest in late 1944 and is buried in a mass grave in the Dohein temple, wasn't a particularly religious man. He certainly didn't put on tefillin (phylacteries) on a regular basis - an act which is considered a daily staple of an orthodox Jewish lifestyle. If not for the war, she never would have ended up with my zeidy (grandfather in yiddish), who was from a hasidic family (he stopped wearing hasidic garb after the war but remained deeply religious). Though they grew up in the same small town in Hungary, their paths most certainly would have never crossed.
Babi's father passed away of natural causes in March 1944. She travelled from Budapest, where she lived with her husband, whom she had been married to for a couple of years at most, to sit shiva in Sátoraljaújhely at her parents house. In the middle of the shiva, her husband called her and told her to leave at once as word had spread that the Nazis had invaded Hungary. So she attempted to board the next train to Budapest. As she arrived at the train station in Sátoraljaújhely, the local anti-semitic authorities were separating out the Jewish passengers, forcing them to remain in the town until they could be deported to Auschwitz. Babi was unaware of this but saw a long line by the main entrance to the station and in her typical independent mindset, snuck in through a back entrance to the station and onto the train out of the city. When she returned to her neighborhood in Budapest later that day, her friends couldn't believe she had made it back from the countryside unscathed.
Babi didn't much like discussing most of her war experiences - she believed in living in the present and harping on it could send her into a deep depression (my mom says Babi once stayed in bed for 3 days straight after she brought her to see a play her class was doing about the Eichman trial). The stories she did have were mostly disjointed - a snippet here, and anecdote there. We know Raul Wallenberg pulled her off a transit at some point and saved her, as he did for many of Budapest's Jews. Above all, Babi would not be defined as a victim despite her harrowing war stories. We never thought of her as a victim - someone that strong never could be one.
Even in her later years when she had Alzheimer's and rarely recognized her grandchildren, she was always quick with a joke or a sly remark. On my last visit to her in May, she quipped to Simone that she was very chinosh (skinny in Hungarian). Then she turned her glance to me and a quipped, "him not so much."
One other story I'm reminded of is from when I was 14. I decided to stay in camp for a 2nd month and skip my family's vacation so my friend Jonah Lowenfeld joined in my place. Babi felt this young man was very rude - at one point she slapped him after he tried to pour wine for my father without 'permission'. That was my Babi though; if she thought you were wrong, she said so. There was no pretense with her.
Looking at pictures on Saturday night with my Mom and brother Hillel, there Babi was at every one of our graduations, always smiling and just happy to be there to witness such a momentous occasion. She always mentioned with pride that my mother always brought home straight A's - this was still an incredible point of pride decades later. Our graduations were the perfect confluence of events as Babi truly valued family and education above all else precisely because of the personal independence those two things offer. With a strong education, she believed life's doors were opened up for you. With a strong family to support you through thick and thin, you could go out and be yourself to the world every day without worrying too much about being judged. In know Babi never did.
Pictures of Babi from this May
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