Hasid or Hipster or What do I know from...

There's this site called Hasid or Hipster where you can go and try to guess if the pictures are of the Hasadim or if the photo is just of a hipster.  Before I make a fool of myself, please note that these are pictures taken in New York.

I was playing this game one morning instead of doing anything constructive, and I thought it was pretty amusing, so I called Momo in to play it with me.  This is the photo that was on the screen at the time...

I explained the concept to Momo and he looked at the photo and then he looked at me.  He looked back at the photo and looked back at me.  He had a very confused look on his face.  He finally said, "You want me to tell you if Rabbi Shmuly is a Hasid or hipster?"  Oh... yeah.  We actually know that guy.  Come to think of it, the guy on the far side of the bench is also in Eighth Day.  (Here's a link to the "official" Lalili video.  Here's a link to the Mickey Mouse version.)

The New York mention doesn't really mean anything.  Chabadniks are constantly traveling everywhere, but especially to New York and Israel.

I tell my son, "Okay, okay... that was a bad example," and then we set off through the photos.  I quit playing with him after a few minutes when he said, "That guy is Chiam's brother."  It's no fun to play if you actually know the guys.  It's okay for me to play alone, because I never recognize anybody.

Enough With the Yelling

When did it become okay to yell at strangers?  In my Kill the Rich post I mentioned an angry man yelling at the volunteer collecting donations for the homeless.  Last night I went to Ralph's and a young woman was standing outside with a petition to keep marijuana dispensaries in Long Beach.  I gladly stopped to sign.  While I was filling out the form, two different men walked by and yelled at the woman.  One yelled, "Aren't you too young to smoke dope?"  To which the puzzled girl answered, "I'm 23."

The second guy just shouted his opposing position without bothering to even slow down as he walked past.

If I see someone doing something that I disagree with, I will sometimes stop to civilly voice my opinion, but I cannot recall ever yelling at a complete stranger.  Why do people think that's an okay way of weighing in, or for that matter, changing minds?

Danger in the Hood

We live in Long Beach.  I have been told that the reason we don't see more gang violence is because Long Beach is totally and completely in the control of the Crips.

Now, here is a map of the gangs in the area just to our north.

You will notice that the areas in blue are Crips.  See the lower wall of blue on the map?  That's the north end of Long Beach.  A regular buffer zone if you will.

Last Friday I went to Rite Aid to pick up some more Ensure for the old guy.  I was at the cash register and could hear men yelling outside.  Suddenly the clerk quit ringing up the Ensure because she said she needed to see if it was safe for me to leave the store.  (And, I suspect, she wanted to know what was up.)  Someone else rang up my purchase and after a few minutes the first clerk came back in to announce that it was a fight between guys from two gangs.  She told me the coast was clear, because one of the guys had left.

On the way to my car, I saw another car full of young black men who looked like they were coming in as reinforcements.  So I felt lucky that I got out of the store before they could call a lock down or something.

Typically I am not afraid of gangs.  They very rarely target middle aged women.  I don't know, it might just seem unmanly.  Mostly I feel guilty about gangs.  What kind of society do we live in that young men can't earn respect without a gun?  Maybe we should stop thinking about having a "gang" problem and realize that it's a social problem that we collectively need to solve.

Enough With the Heat Already

While the rest of the nation was baking in brutal heat this summer, we were having a perfectly pleasant time in Long Beach.  Until September and October when we got our own heat wave.  It's been brutal.  We've probably had a whole week combined of miserable heat.

Here is a picture to demonstrate how hot it's been...

Yes, that little thingee that holds the strings down on Momo's guitar came undone when the glue melted.  Now, that's hot.

Here is a photo of him with an Ud (I don't know how to spell it), which is like an Arabian mandolin.

I guess that if you live in Arabia, you make sure to use materials that don't mind if it gets too hot.  

So even though we are musically prepared for global warming, I'm ready for it to cool off.  Not like an ice age cool off... you know, not to hot and not too cold.  Is there going to be any place like that?  Maybe we should move there now.

Are You In The Mood...

Are you in the mood to vote?  Apparently democracy in the first world basically works by how the crowd is feeling at the time.  It becomes more and more clear that people choose almost everything based on emotion.    I think it's a fine system for buying sweaters or even cars, but it seems like kind of a lousy way to choose the leader of a nation.  Unless, of course, you think the political system is doomed, in which case who smiled more or who seemed to "want" to be leader most would be a perfectly fine way to vote.

A common refrain from this election cycle seems to be something about does the candidate understand me?  Are we picking a spouse?  A psychologist?  I don't even understand me, I certainly don't expect anyone else to.  There are 311 million of us.

How about people who are like me?  (Heaven help us if that number is very large.)  Frankly, I'm okay right now financially (see the posting about killing the rich) but I do worry about the people living on the street.  I do worry about all those people we keep throwing in prison.  I worry about who I could be, if the circumstances were only slightly different.

There is also literally a whole world of other issues that matter too.  When an American votes, it can mean life or death for people in other countries.  I care about that.  Also when we vote, we carry on our coattails people who don't or cannot vote for themselves.

Electing a leader has become (or maybe it was always this way) a monstrously expensive show.  Do you know how much freaking money goes into an election cycle?  Do you know what superior educations we could give our kids with that money?  Enough education that they could vote based on issues instead of personalities.

Remember to vote.  Remember to vote intelligently.  You live in a democracy, it's your job.

What to Do?

When dad broke his hip in June, I refocused on his health instead of mine.  So, while he has had clean laundry and a lot of pampering, I had quit doing my daily exercises.  Of course, this was not a good idea.  So this morning I decided that I have to get back to my walking routine.

As soon as I left the house, I came to the proverbial "fork in the road."

I knew I was supposed to do something, but all I could remember was Yogi Berra's advice that when you get to a fork in the road you should take it.  I decided against that, mainly because it doesn't match my cutlery (thank goodness).

Perhaps you should remember this day as the day when Auntie came to the fork and did nothing because she couldn't remember a better quote.  Let this be a learning experience for you all.  Figure out now what to do with the fork in the road, so when it appears for you, you will know what to do.

Kill the Rich

I don't know if I've mentioned that my synagogue is being remodeled.  Yes, the synagogue that I live by so I don't have to drive on Shabbat, has been under construction all year so I've had to drive to the JCC for Shabbat.  Helsie's best laid plans.  Oh well.

The remodel is approaching completion and I noticed the other day that some one had tagged the sign out front with "Kill the Rich".  I was with the Queen of Trope when we saw this message.  I asked her if we needed to dig out our Marie Antoinette wigs.  (Would those be with Purim costumes or somewhere with hats?)

Mostly what I wonder about this sign is if I'm included with "the rich".  Certainly from a world perspective I am.  The only times I miss meals are when I do it intentionally, like on fast days.  I suppose that if they actually do kill the rich, I may be included.  It seems a bit harsh, but I'm counting on the short American attention span.  Ohhh look... a zombie!

I was coming out of Target the other day and there was an elderly black man sitting with a box for donations for the homeless.  When he went into his spiel, I stopped him and said, "You know you always get all my change."  That made him laugh and we started to talk.  He's not homeless.  He's retired but this is his volunteer job.  Then we started talking about how, in an instant, your life can change and you can be the one in need of help.  While we were discussing this, an old white guy with a crew cut came up behind him and started screaming (not an exaggeration), "You just take other people's money!"  He screamed this several times until he realized that we were happily continuing our discussion despite him and went to traumatize someone else.

 Yes.  He's taking other people's money.  If he hadn't been screaming I would've been inclined to pat him on the hand and tell him, "Yes, you get it.  He takes money from other people and gives it to people who need it more."  It's the basic part of tzaddakah.  Christians translate this word as "charity", the correct translation is closer to "justice".  

My guess is that if a community is truly practicing tzaddakah, that nobody decides that it's a good idea to kill the rich.

In the mean time, I think I'd better get a wig.  If I'm going out, I want to do it in style.

Oh Jonah, He Lived in a Whale

I like the Jonah story.  I can relate to the guy.  Not because I have been in the belly of the leviathan, but because I don't want to be the responsible adult. I don't really feel qualified to be the responsible adult, but I can't find anyone else to do the job.  And that's nothing compared to what G-d was telling him do.  Think about how poor Jonah felt.  And he just couldn't wiggle out of it.

It always seems to me that being a prophet is a really lousy job.  Everyone tries to squirm out of it one way or another.  And we learn from the story of Jonah, that there is no escape.  I appreciate, on a not mom level, Jonah being crabby about it right up to the end.

So let's break it down.  Jonah has the honor of being a prophet of G-d.  That's good.  Now everyone he talks to is going to think he's crazy.  Not good.  Then... G-d says that he will save the people whom He just had Jonah condemn to death.   Great.  He didn't want the job anyway, and now G-d totally leaves him hanging as far as the people go.  So he's a prophet who called it totally wrong.  Great.  Thanks.  This never would hold up on reality TV.  He comes off looking like the guy who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart.

Which brings us to an excellent point... what if some of the crazy guys are really just lesser prophets?  How can you tell?  I like the selection process for the Dali Lama.  When he dies, everyone scrambles around looking for him in his next incarnation.  They can usually spot him when he's still a small child.  This is good because he's too little to act all Jonah about it.

Which brings us to another point (it isn't called "Random Musings" for nothing).  I have heard that the Dali Lama isn't coming back.  Actually, I just started poking around the web so I could give you the definative resignation of the big DL and all I could find were articles stating that he might not come back.  I like to think that he might have something a little Indiana Jones up his sleeve, but what do I know?

I would also like you to notice that I didn't steal any squirrel pictures for this entry.

In the end was G-d satisfied with Jonah?  I've been asking Momo for days to take down the sukkah.  At this point, even when he does take it down, I'm still going to be annoyed that it took so long.  So maybe even though he finally gave in and did what G-d told him, he may be on the list of people who are annoying to the holy one.  In the Zohar we learn that in the world to come the righteous will feast on the pickled flesh of the leviathan.  In the end does the whale end up in the belly of  Jonah?

Squirrel Escalation

My son's arch nemesis, the squirrel, is dead.  Animal lovers take a deep breath... Momo did not kill the squirrel.  It was an act of nature that killed the little fur ball.  One of the 50' palm trees in our yard shed some debris and the squirrel was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  He ended his life being just more palm tree debris.  

You would think that the war would be over now that one of the main players is dead.  If you thought this, you probably hang out with much more sane people than I do.  Last night, as the boys were outside smoking and playing cards, Zach's car alarm went off for no reason.  Of course the conclusion they jumped to was that it was because of Ghost Squirrel.  The squirrel has entered the realm of myth now.  

I thought I would steal another squirrel graphic off the web to illustrate this story.  So I typed "squirrel ghost" into the computer (I couldn't bring myself to type in "dead squirrel"... I was afraid it would be too graphic for me).  Among the many many images listed (go ahead... try it yourself...) I found this:

In my mind this brings Ghost Squirrel to a whole new level.  One day my grandchildren will climb up on my knee and ask me if it's true that I saw Ghost Squirrel when he was still alive.  I wonder what I will tell them.  

Oops...

The other day I was in Costco, doing my shopping, thinking my thoughts.  At the checkout line the clerk asked me if some item was mine and I said, "Yes ma'am."  My reply was met by total silence.  I looked up to see what was wrong and realized  that the clerk was a large black man.  All of the men in my family are tall, so when I say large, I mean he really was very big.  And apparently not amused.  So I smiled (in what I thought was a sweet manner) and said, "Oh, you probably don't get that mistake very often."  He glared at me and said, "Never."  The rest of the items were scanned without discussion.  The fact that he was so annoyed, even after I admitted my mistake, made me think that the whole thing was that much funnier.  I tried to look serious as I left, but there may have been a shadow of a smirk.  I think the only reason I was allowed to live was that I'm a plump little old lady.  Do you realize how much fun I can have now that I've reached this point in my life.  I can say freaking anything.  Not that I wasn't already.

It really wasn't his fault.  He was standing around being as manly as possible while wearing an apron.  The problem is that when I'm thinking my thoughts, I pretty much don't recognize anyone.  And if what I'm doing doesn't require concentration, I usually wander away in my mind.  I have a brother who thinks it's really funny to keep walking by me in airports until I recognize him.  Sometimes he has to walk by a lot.  It has made me kind of paranoid when I go to airports now.  I try really hard to focus on who I am picking up and hoping I can remember what they look like. The anxiety disappears as soon as I see the person and they look the same as usual.  So if I ignore you, please realize that I ignore everyone.

Now I just need to figure out where the second nearest Costco is.

Political Assissinations

When I was a little kid growing up in Hawaii I had tons of Asian school friends.  They were from all over Asia, but mostly China or Japan.  We also had a television.  We watched Neil Armstrong take his first step as we drank our Tang (tasty) and ate our chocolate space sticks (really gross).  We also got to watch the Vietnam War every evening.  There wasn't much coverage on the Cultural Revolution, although that gave me nightmares for years.

The idea of bringing the war into our living rooms was new.  TV wasn't that very old and so this was something that we could do.  Frankly, it's a really bad idea.  You may think that it's odd that these days the newscaster gives you a heads up if they are going to show something questionable, so you have time to tell the kids to go in the kitchen and make some popcorn.  When they have really gross footage, they don't even show it.  What they learned was that watching a man having his brains blown out on TV really upset people.

There were lots of things in the news in those days that I didn't understand, but I didn't know enough to know how to ask about it.  How can people be so against youth in Asia?  What did youth in Asia ever do to them?  Also, who came up with the brilliant idea of giving guns to gorillas?  It seemed highly unlikely that those big gorilla fingers could even fire a gun.

One evening's news made a huge impact on me.  There were some soldiers rounding up little kids and taking from their families to I don't know where.  One of the crying girls looked exactly like one of my friends at school.  I panicked.  I was desperate for answers... Where are they taking them?  What will happen to them?  Where are their mothers?  No one in my family knew.  My father, who went to Viet Nam for work fairly regularly set me down for a talk.  (Similar, I'm sure, with zillion of family talks after 9/11.)

So the girls hadn't done anything wrong?  No.  Their mom's hadn't done anything wrong? No.  But our leaders disagree with their leaders and hence we have a war.  And why are children being napalmed, or having vaccinated limbs chopped off?  Well... because it isn't legal to single out a single person for assassination, it wouldn't be right.  It's okay to kill lots and lots of people who had nothing to do with it, but it's not okay to just kill the guy we have beef with.  Wow.

President Obama catches flak for sending drones to just kill the guys he has a beef with.  The six year old in me can tell you that that is a much better policy.  Yes, it's true that sometimes the people right around the target also gets killed.  That's tragic.  It isn't as tragic as if the whole country gets punished.  There are complex problems about due process etc.  If you cut off the head off the leader of our enemies, another will appear.  (Hey, some of my best jobs were caused by power vacuums.)  Cut off as many snake heads as you want but LEAVE THE LITTLE GIRLS OUT OF IT!

Big Brother & a Secret Weapon

Now that it's fairly easy to spy on people, since they publish everything about themselves on the internet anyway, it seems unlikely that anyone still has mail duty.  Possibly nobody ever had mail duty, but in my youth I had plenty of friends who suspected that their letters were steamed open an read.  (Come to think of it, somebody probably should've been reading their mail.)  There was also a theory that the letters were carefully extracted with a disposable wooden chopstick. Even though the chopstick method was shown to me, by a conspiracy theorist who frequently ate dinner at our house, I still had a little doubt about people in some basement office somewhere using this time consuming method to spy on me.

But now.... now we can get somewhere with this.  I'm pretty sure that spies just use computers now (I don't know if this is true for my Russian readers...  thanks by the way for being the #1 nationality that reads my blog... what's wrong with my fellow countrymen?).  We can totally get around this.  If you were to plot something nefarious, but do it the old school way, I think you could do it under the radar.  So here are some tips:

• Talk to people in person.  I realize that you can't get the same huge audience that Twitter can, but it really makes an impression to have a little face time with a person.  Also, you can deny everything later.
• Write letters.  Yes, we can save the Post Office and be sneaky at the same time.

A bonus that comes with writing letters was pointed out by my cousin Bruce:  In the days of letter writing, if you got drunk one night and wrote letters to people, you still had to mail them in the morning when you were sober and could think better of it.  Now, you just hit "send" while you're still drunk and the recipient reads it the next morning when you are sober.  You can see the advantage of a waiting period.