That's a paddlin...

Boost Mobile - you took a seminal childhood memory - the glorious, groundbreaking, and influential Super Bowl Shuffle - and you turned it into a bleary-eyed zombie-eaten corpse of itself. It burns, IT BURNS! Between this, the GI Joe movie, and a recent glimpse of my 3rd grade school picture, my childhood has really taken a beating this year. It's a damn good thing I'm an adult and I don't have to deal with that sort of...

Home purchasing - oh, wait, that's right, I have to do THIS, instead. I'd take a thousand locker shoves from Geoff Terman before I'd go through this again.
Mortgage broker: So if you get me this statement, and a copy of the checks, we should be good to go.
Me: Great! Here you go.
MB: I'm sorry, I meant THIS statement, and a copy of the backs of the checks as well.
Me: OK! Here you go.
MB: Oh, did I forget to ask for a complete sexual history? I'll need that, as well. Oh, and a copy of the original statement, but notarized and handwritten.
Me: Here. Take this.
MB: Oooh, my mistake. It seems that now the underwriter needs the ORIGINAL statement that you faxed three weeks ago, but it needs to come from the fax machine of one Jerry Boseman, of Butte, Montana. Here's his number, if you'll just
Me: Who's the closer now, bitch?

Dan Brown - I wasted 5 hours to read your stupid book, Dan. And I want them back. If you're going to just write the same damn story over and over again, at least hide some of the redundancy. And your obsession with large, hulking evil men who are all devilishly handsome and inhumanly strong speaks volumes about your...interests. I'm not knocking it: all I'm saying is, you're super gay. Own it. And stop publishing.

Sarah Palin - you're a retarded hypocrite.

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Booyakasha.

Festus - you're the size of my thumb right now, but evidently that's enough to make Wife nauseous for six weeks. ENOUGH. If you're going to be this big a pain inside the womb-a, G-d help us when you claw your way out in August. And if you think it's unfair that I'm already complaining about you and you're not even born yet, well...good luck in the Fancy Pants Clan, my fine little whatever-you-are-that's-not-really-a-person-yet-but-has-a-heartbeat-and-toes.

The Olympics - you are not interesting unless someone is crashing. And while there have been some great spills, everything has to have a heartbreaking story. I've got my own crap to deal with, Canada and NBC. I don't need to hear about how the Nordic Combined team all bonded over their shared experience of being adopted and then sold to a cult but then rescued by loving grandparents from Sweden who only wanted their grandson to be great at something, since little Tommy, Roy and Deke can't even read. Wake me when Community's back on.

February - go away, now. This month I have:
- received a black eye from Child,
- broken my own glasses with a lamp,
- had sharp stabbing abdominal pain that mysteriously disappeared after a quick run to the ER,
- dealt with the mortgage nonsense you read about just 30 seconds ago,
- had to deal with 3 feet of snow, and the narrowed streets and the awful drivers and the new and varied potholes and the leaks and the worrying about the new house and whether it's flooded and will we know before we move? because the seller sure isn't going to be forthcoming with that information,
- and now the melting of the snow, which means watch out for enormous falling icicles that will impale you and your loved ones! Hooray! And,
- Black History Month. Not that I'm opposed to blacks getting their own month, but history is boring. We have a black president! Let's hear more about him! Although...

Barack Obama - you are being a real big pussy, Mr. President. Sack up, slap Harry Reid in his old white face, and have Glenn Beck waterboarded. You are the leader of the free world, one of the smartest men to ever sit in the Oval Office, and you let Congress handle health care? Maybe you ARE retarded. In the meantime, own your agenda, and tell the Republicans where to shove their teabags. I know there's room for them all on Sarah Palin's chin. And now that she's working at Fox, it's not like she's got anything better to do.

OW MY DEFENSE - ooh, cookie!

If you wanted to curse your own football team, what would you do in the offseason? Spit in a voodoo witch's soup? Slaughter a baby goat in the endzone? Wear Packer green and yellow without showering until they kick you out of your Overeaters Anonymous group?

Or...hire Rod Marinelli? Ding ding ding! Come on down, Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith! Seriously, is there anything about last year's Detroit Lions - record-breakingly bad 0-16, coached by one Rod Marinelli - that you'd want to bring to your team? Other than Rod's winning smile, I mean. Seriously, check out his pics online - he's dreammmmmy.

But if there's anyone in the world that wanted to see Mr. Marinelli on the opposing sideline, it would be Cedric Fucking Benson. And the only person he'd want to see more would be the guy who trashed him to the rest of the league last year - me. Er, make that EVERY SINGLE BEARS FAN OVER THE PAST 4 YEARS.

So what did CB do? He fucked us all, is what he did. Crybaby Sulkypants looked positively Rexy, throwing a couple more picks while Matt Forte continued his assault on fantasy football owners, by running for nothing on way too many attempts. Is there a sophomore slump for running backs that I'm not aware of? Or is it just the curse of Rod fucking Marinelli?

He has wrecked the Bears defensive line. Singlehandedly. Could it be injuries to Urlacher, and the departure of a few quality safeties? Maybe. Could it be the complete disappearance of one Tommie Harris?

All I know is, the Bears had a defense last year, and then they hired Rod fucking Marinelli, and now they have 11 seahorses. I love seahorses! But I hate losing. So go away, seahorses.

Cedric Fucking Benson! What the hell?

Frummies and Bears, why must you torment me so?

The Falcons are a good team. No one denies this. And yet once again, there were the Bears, with an opportunity to pull out a quality win. And there was Sulkypants, throwing the ball to the other team. Seriously, we could have just kept the Sex Cannon, and had a whole lot more fun, and more draft picks, and more of the sexy.

We've had years of ridiculous luck - 2003, when we had an actual streak of overtime victories via interceptions returned for TD's comes to mind. This is not that kind of year. Urlacher's out, Mike Brown is long gone, and some guy named Roach is playing in the middle. And where's Matt Forte? Can someone let him know that the season started? Because it's going to be a race to see who kills him first - Bears fans, or fantasy football players. Someone tried to convince me this year that Forte should have been drafted first overall, ahead of Adrian Peterson, or Peyton Manning, or Drew Brees. That person is now immersed in alcohol as he comes up with a way to tell his wife that they lost their life savings betting on a Bears running back. So good luck with that, buddy.

Have I ever told you why I hate frum Jews? Not all of them - there are at least 4 that I quite enjoy. But the rest are a big pain in my butt, and often capable of performing ridiculous acts of chillul Hashem - that would be besmirching G-d's name, and embarrassing the Jews, for those non-Ivrit speakers. 2 quick stories, all of which have happened in the last week:

1) We're looking to buy a house, because I want to have a lawn so I can yell at kids on my block who walk on my lawn, and I can say to them "hey! Get off my lawn! And go get a haircut, hippies!" Seriously, there are hippies everywhere in Pittsburgh.

Anyhoo, we found this house in a great location. Unfortunately, it's a complete dump, with wallpaper peeling off the walls, unfinished basement, a kitchen that looks like it was imported from the nearest crack house, and really, really ugly paint jobs in every bedroom. It's owned by a frum family with 5 kids and another on the way, and they have used that house, I mean in every way. But it's got potential, and a great back yard, and again, the location is fantastic.

So we go to make an offer. And we're working with an agent because, despite my experience as a real estate attorney, I don't actually know anything about buying a house. We give them a call to let them know to expect our offer, and they want to sit down with us first. We go to the house, and they proceed to try to talk us out of using an agent. "What do you need an agent for?" the husband says. Which, fine, I understand they don't want to add to the cost of the transaction, and I appreciate that.

But then, he says "which shul do you go to? Oh, I know so-and-so there, we're very close! Why don't we just work this out, the two of us?" See, because I was wearing a kippah, so obviously I don't need any sort of real process. In fact, why don't we just knock back some Slivovitz after kiddush, and we can bang it out before Mincha? Who needs an appraiser, or an inspection? Not us, because we're all Jews here, right?

False. We offered 40,000 under asking price, because when you're trying to sell your house for twice what you bought it for less than 5 years after you bought it, and it's blatantly clear you didn't put any money into it, then you don't get the courtesy of a real offer. Ass.

2) Every year, Maccabi Tel Aviv plays an exhibition basketball game at Madison Square Garden against the Knicks, as a fundraiser for Migdal Ohr, an Israeli orphanage. And it's great, and lots of Jews go, and Maccabi always loses.

Evidently this year, though, the coach wasn't ok with losing. In fact, he had some issues with the way the refs were calling the game, and they T'd him up, and ejected him. Usually, coaches in that situation will, you know, be ejected.

But not Pini, no sirreebob. He decides this doesn't really apply to him. He's not going anywhere. Security, the refs - no one can convince him. Finally, Rabbi Grossman, head of the orphanage, comes down out of the stands. Great! The rabbi will be the voice of reason.

Not quite. And maybe I should be more upset with Gershon than I should with the rabbi, because let's be honest, Gershon was a lot more embarrassing to the Jews than the rabbi was. But to me, the rabbi's actions were prime examples of what some rabbis do when confronted with non-Jewish rules: they try to explain why Jews aren't subject to those rules. Whether it's tax laws, or child abuse, or keeping Shabbos instead of rioting about a parking lot, or assaulting women in pants, or making women sit in the back of the bus (if they're allowed on the bus at all), or exploiting illegal immigrants to overcharge for kosher meat, there has been a really awkward and embarrassing string of rabbinic activity in the last year or so.

Maybe it wasn't fair to preface this by saying how much I hate frum Jews. Instead, I'll say that I really hate the disturbing absence of holiness in our religious leadership, and fear for the future of religious Judaism.

Oh, and that Pini Gershon is a douchebag.

How many kicks to the groin? 4! UPDATE: 5!

Oh, Crybaby. Here are the rationalizations that I conceded to you, hours before kickoff:

- your receivers suck (no offense, Devin Hester).
- there's a ton of pressure on you as the Second Coming of Sid Luckman.
- your first game is at Lambeau, the belly of the green and yellow and fat, fat beast.

And yet somehow you still (still!) found a way to fall short of my hopes and dreams.

Let's tally, shall we?

1st quarter: You were lucky to have thrown just the one interception. You were basically begging the Packers to pick off your throws. Did you not realize that you were playing tackle football and not, for example, 500? Because with that helmet over your whiny sulky face, I couldn't tell if you were calling out numbers on your throws.

"Hey, Nick Collins, this is right to you, so you only get 150 if you catch it. Al Harris? This one's tough, worth 300."

If that's the case, then maybe you're just stupid, and I feel a little bad. Not a lot, but a little. Let's move on, shall we?

2nd quarter: 2 more picks, which I almost didn't notice, because I got to do my safety dance, thanks to Danyelle - Danielle - Daneal - Danieal - Dan Manning.



In the 3rd quarter it looked almost like you knew what you were doing - the beautiful throw to Hester, the other scoring drive, the lack of throwing to the other team - so I started to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Ah me, and my naive, wild-eyed optimism.

4th quarter, and you better thank Patrick Mannelly that you weren't the worst player of the game. Mr. Mannelly, I'll have you know, is a graduate of Duke University, so not only does he make awful decisions as the long snapper, but he also hates black people and rapes strippers.

So he makes an amazingly bad call to fake a punt deep in his own territory, and the Packers get to score. And still - still! - the Bears are in a position to win the game, right until the end.

And then the defense breaks down and gives up the touchdown pass, because let's face it, Nathan Vasher needs to be shifted over to safety to cover his slow ass. But there's plenty of time, and crazier things have happened.

That's right, it's time for pick #4! Come on down, Crybaby Sulkypants! Join the pantheon of great Bears quarterbacks! Amazing arm, guy! It's you and Jeff George, all the way!

And finally, just as a final thanks for the 2009-10 memories, Urlacher is out for the season with a dislocated wrist. I swear I've seen linebackers play in casts before. Are you telling me that he was able to play entire seasons - and make Pro Bowls - despite the undiscovered and virulent STDs he picked up from Paris Hilton, and yet a simple dislocated joint puts him out for the year?

G-d this season is going to suck.

Nerdiness

If you're all of a sudden gripped with a powerful urge to give me a wedgie and take my lunch money during this post, maybe you should skip it and come back some other time.

I'm just warning you now.

Okay then.

Here I go.

I saw G.I. Joe last night, and it confirmed my worst fears. Because, you see, it wasn't completely terrible.

I mean sure, Stephen Sommers can't direct traffic, let alone a movie, and his action scenes could have been so much sweeter. And Channing Tatum, the Mumbling Doofus, is a terrible Duke (and plotwise, he was a terrible character - always screwing up, letting the enemy escape...hell, Marlon fucking Wayans as Ripchord was a bigger hero, and he was the comic relief!). But the explosions were bright and shiny, and the effects were pretty sweet. Even the ninja fights were cool (especially the little kid ones - tiny psychopathic killers are the cutest!). No, it wasn't the footage or even the inane dialogue that killed it for me - it was what they did to Snake Eyes.

For G.I. Joe nerds, Snake Eyes is the Man. Silent, deadly, and a super fantastic ninja, he's the pinnacle of nerd love, for those of us who don't get down with superpowers. So when I first heard there would be a G.I. Joe movie, my first gut reaction was, "Great. How are they going to mess with Snake Eyes?" Just a further example - when I linked above to the Snake Eyes Wikipedia page, I first had to read it all, and then close my office door and perform ninja moves until I calmed down. Snake Eyes is AWESOME.

So he's all scarred, and had this thing with Scarlett, and that's why he doesn't talk and is all supercool. So what does Stephen "Moronface" Sommers do? He gives Snake Eyes a vow of silence, and hooks up Scarlett and Ripchord, who was most recently seen in Norbit and Little Man. And for this, I will never forgive Moronface. God, I hate him so much.

Is happiness a warm gun, or an electrified fence?

Sorry for the posting gap again. I've been debating whether or not to purchase a semi-automatic rifle, to protect my family from the roaming hordes that have begun terrorizing my neighborhood.

Let me take a step back.

I grew up in the suburbs (Glendale, WI, represent!). To me, people who looked their car and home doors were paranoid, or feral cityfolk. I thought you only had to worry about such things in places that also had sidewalks, and streetlights, and stoplights that kept working after 9 pm. Only suckers had to fence themselves off from their neighbors, was my firmly held 9-year-old belief.

Eventually, though, I moved to various cities, and learned the value of keeping my stuff safe. I also learned to never make eye contact on public transportation, to not flash your lights at a car without its lights on at night, never wear red or blue in public unless you want to be get wacked in a drive-by, and fuck the po-lice.

But for whatever reason, I thought Pittsburgh, specifically Squirrel Hill was different. It's the midwest! People are nice, obey speed limits, and are afraid of bridges and tunnels. Kids play ball in the street. People let you skip in line. Fathers will let you walk their young, nubile, naive daughter home at night, because you're such a nice-looking boy.

So I got sloppy. And I forgot the first rule of home safety - never expose bright shiny things to the seedy criminal element.

What I'm trying to say is, some fuckers stole our stroller.



It's not a TV. It's not a car. It's only the means by which I transport my child. No, these people aren't vile, scum of the earth. They are the lint from within my sweaty armpits. They are the goop from an infected ingrown toenail. They are weeping sores upon the testicles of society.

So what do I do? I'm locking everything up, tying everything down. I'm getting bulletproof glass for my car, and hidden machine guns in the headlights. I'm going to run an electric current through my grill so anyone who touches it gets 20,000 volts up the ass. I'm teaching child Kung-Fu, and giving Wife brass knuckles and a spiked bat. I'm having motion detectors put on my house, so anyone who approaches within 300 yards sets off piercing alarms and spotlights. I'm also training release the hounds with bees in their mouths so when they bark they spit bees at you (thanks, Homer, once again, for your brilliant insights).

So do I buy a gun, or what? Am I that guy? Do I have a rocking chair I can move to my porch and from which can eye suspiciously each and every passerby? Do I put my Glock in a locked case next to my bed, or get a thigh-holster and become a cowboy? Or one of those under-the-armpit bra-type thingies? Ankle holster? Attach it to an apparatus around my head? I need some good advice about joining the NRA.

Oh, and I have a kippah tan. That's right, because I'm bald, and whiter than Francis McKenzie Smithson, center for the Ku Klux Klan iter-racial basketball team (team name - the Alabama Pale Horses).

Today I am a pencil/Madoff and Jackson, an exercise in connecting unrelated events

For too long I lived without a grill of me own. I had to rely on the generosity of others to roast meats over an open flame, fueled with charcoal or propane or lighter fluid and deodorant.

But no longer.

For yesterday I received a belated Father's Day present - the Char-Broil Commercial Series 500. 48,000 BTUs, 680 square inches of cooking area, and big honking knobs to crank up the juice.

Do I know if that's a lot of BTUs? I do not. Do I know what a BTU is? I'm guessing it has something to do with temperature, since I've only ever seen it on grills and air conditioners. But I don't care. Because now I can grill anything I want, anytime I want.

Grill a steak? You betcha.

Burgers and hot dogs? Natch.

Chicken? Why not.

Salmon? Okay...

Vegetables? I mean, I guess, if I was out of meat...

Tofurkey? Get the fuck off my blog, commie.

________________________________________________

I'm sorry Michael Jackson died. He had a fantastically successful life, and he loved children. LOVED little boys. Adored them. And now he's dead. So...that happened.

________________________________________________

Bernie Madoff was sentenced today. 150 years. Not bad for the guy who wrecked the Jewish philanthropic world, shut down entire foundations, and bankrupted whole families. I feel...nothing, strangely. No elation, no satisfaction. To me, justice isn't really served. Yes, he'll suffer, and probably be violated in interesting ways in prison, but it's just not - I guess I'm looking for more visceral retribution for his victims. So here's what I came up with:

A global manhunt. The complete list of Madoff's victims would have joint access to his fortune, and they would use it to hunt him down. They could participate directly, or hire a proxy to do the actual hunting. And then day by day, hour by hour, they would close in on him.

And after a few weeks, or months, they would corner him in a Taiwanese alley. His clothes shredded, his face scarred from a thousand thorns and brambles, his eyes alight with fear and recognition.

And then they would take turns kicking him in the crotch.

First, what network wouldn't pay millions to broadcast that? Second, raise your hand if you would watch that show. I would Tivo it, and then rewatch it every time some politician lied or I was just feeling down, or slighted in some way. "Well at least Madoff took it in the nuts on live TV," I could say, and feel better about the world, and dead pop star pedophiles.

I'm more European than an English Muffin

I talk a lot of junk about hippies, and the Commies. But deep down, my heart bleeds for endangered fluffy bunnies and Mother Earth. And for our neighbors to the North, I give you guys some crap, but sometimes I think I wouldn't be better as a Canadian.



You see, I was born without a profit motive. As for money I just...I just don't care. So when it comes to corporations I'm at best ambivalent. Sure, they can do some good, but since they have no reason to exist other than to provide their shareholders with a return, sometimes they're downright evil.

So when I read Naomi Klein's (Canadian Jew!) The Shock Doctrine, it confirmed my paranoia. Klein has a real bone to pick with Milton Friedman, seemingly mild-mannered economist and sworn enemy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal.

Friedman took a psychological experiment using electro-shock therapy and turned it into the dominant economic and political theory of the last 60 years. The idea is to shock a country or region into disorientation, either through natural disaster or war or some other traumatic event. With the public reeling, the government needs a quick fix. So Friedman trained economists from all over the world to step in and offer lessons in privatization, and corporate-friendly labor laws and taxes. He started in Chile with Augusto Pinochet, then moved through South America privatizing Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia following the coups that occurred there. His acolytes promised new wealth, freedom, and democracy.

The only problem is that the coups were often funded and provoked by the CIA. And once the wildly unpopular economic plans were announced, and citizens were a little upset when their healthcare and wage protections were revoked, the governments invariably arrested and killed thousands of dissenters.

The privatizations allowed a few to become wildly rich, and the vast majority to become fantastically poor. Friedman's theory was tested in South America, and then unleashed in Indonesia, Poland, Russia, and Great Britain. The World Bank and the IMF were created to provide funding for underdeveloped countries, and they used that opportunity to make the loans contingent on extensive privatization. Eventually natural disasters were exploited, like the 2004 tsunami and Hurricanes Mitch and Katrina. In most cases either Friedman's students or corporate officers themselves who drafted the new economic regulations.

And then there was that whole Iraq thing. Friedman's followers are responsible for the incredible amount of contracting going on in Iraq, as well as in many other areas of the US government. Guys like Grover Norquist, who said that "I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." This is Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, invaluable adviser to Bush, and co-drafter of Newt Gingrich's 1994 Contract with America. For a guy who hates government so much, he sure has an awful lot to do with it. Although how are we supposed to take a guy named Grover seriously?

So aside from all that, the book was HILARIOUS. You'll laugh until you cry. And if you live in Canada, you'll probably drink yourself silly, comforted in the knowledge that your trip to the hospital for alcohol poisoning and cirrhosis will be paid for by a bunch of snooty Quebecois.

I guess my point is, hoooooooooray for capitalism.

I've got gigantic blue balls

OK, maybe the title was a little...jarring, but I really think I need your attention on this. Ever since Barack Obama won the Democratic presidential nomination, there has been a flurry of skittish paranoid - pardon the candor - pussiness.

It culminated recently with this New Yorker cover, which you can find here, but I can't seem to show the actual cover because I'm not so secretly an idiot.

This set off a flurry of craziness, laid out quite well here.

All of this makes me kind of want to vomit. I've had to talk other Democrat supporters off the ledge because of the Rev. Wright thing, the black thing, the Indonesia thing, the black thing. And I will admit, as Hendrik Hertzberg does, that the telecom immunity thing was a kneecapper. That one hurt. It was a baldfaced political move, designed to show he's "tough on terror," and easy on big business. The fact that his vote wouldn't have mattered one way or the other made it almost too easy.

So sure, liberals are upset. They're nervous. And not like 4 years ago, when they were afraid because their - OK, our - candidate was a sad sack of elitist, out-of-touch robot man. It's weird to be the frontrunner, huh? Everyone out to get you, your opponent pulling out all the stops just to take you down a peg or two. Not like last time, when...they...didn't...with the...Swift Boat...right. Nevermind.

But I'm going to put a stop to this, right here. Get off your collective khaki'd ass, Democrats. Barack Obama is a fantastic candidate. Smart, well-spoken, tall. He has great floppy ears. His wife is hot and spicy, and gives a mean pound.

Fist bump, people. That means fist pump.

And I know this didn't help us last time, but it has to be mentioned for the record: one of the best things about Senator Barack Obama as our Democratic presidential candidate is that he's not Senator John McCain. And watch, I can do this without mentioning that McCain is so very very old.

McCain - doesn't support off-shore drilling for oil. Wait, sorry, he does now, never mind. He wants to repeal the tax cuts that favor the wealthy. No, sorry, he's now in favor of making those cuts permanent. Which hey, that's cool, I like rich people. It's just that there are all those poor people, and they seem kinda important too, so maybe we should throw them a bone, or universal healthcare. Poor people, for the purposes of this post, is defined as anyone making less than $250,000.

McCain has an awful temper that makes him volatile in stressful situations. He's pro-life, he's a proponent of maintaining the war on drugs, and he's backed off of every reasonable position he's ever held, including illegal immigration. His solutions for global warming, social security, and health care are complicated: "hey, let's let corporations handle it! Then we can focus on what government does best - killing and oppressing people who aren't American. Unless they're Muslim, in which case full body cavity searches for everyone.

Yes, that's a tad heavy-handed. But you know what? Screw them. We own this election. We're going to put a Democrat in the White House - a black constitutional law professor. A liberal. An elitist, in that he's better than you, me, and anyone else you or I know. He's going to wipe the floor with McCain. It will be embarassing - first white man to lose a presidential election to a black guy and all.

So stop whining! This should be a 4 1/2-month party. Because unless Osama Bin Laden is the October surprise, McCain is going to go wee wee wee all the way home.

Well this is just disturbing.

I've got nothing to say about this except you should read it. Then we should all head off en masse and find out where we too can sue George.

And America goes 3 for 3 this week, and No Fear Players of the Week

I've long given up on the United States Executive branch. Sure, Scott McLellan comes out with his memoir, and that's important. But it changes nothing. So for the past few months I've been ignoring the President and his puppeteer Cheney.

But I still held out hope for the other two governmental branches. After all, Congress is Democratic, and that counts for something, right? And the Supreme Court, well sometimes Justice Kennedy is a liberal, so hooray for that!

And then Congress gives the telecom companies a gigantic blowjob, and on the same day that they get the death penalty right, The Supremes go Dick Cheney on the Alaskan ecosystem.



I can swallow the cave-in by Congress. The Democrats are used to giving in, so this was more of a habit than anything else. Plus it has the added advantage of looking tough on terror in an election year, so hooorah. Hell, it even prompted Saint Obama to vote in favor of immunity. But the Supreme Court? It was Justice Kennedy's week to be a liberal! Ginsberg was fixin' for a fight! Souter got to stay up past 9! But no. Instead they gave away $2 billion that was due Alaska. Whatever, it's not like there were pictures, right? Wait a minute...















On the flip side, this does give us cause to celebrate our No Fear Players of the Week. Sens. Chris Dodd, Rusty Feingold (Wisconsin, Heyo!) and Barbie Boxer. I'm not going to give it up for the liberal Supremes, partially because Diana Ross still won't take them back as her backups, and also because David Souter still lives with his mother, so he cannot, by definition, be a No Fear Player. Ever.

The supposedly Democratic Senate has rolled over and offered itself up for abuse by the Bush administration too many times to count, and it's getting a little nauseous in here. So kudos to the actual Senate Democrats - Boxer, Feingold and Dodd - for having the stones to vote their party's platform. The rest of you spineless power whores can kiss my ass.

Wait, Judas WAS Jewish!

Usually I can work up a nice lather thinking about the interminable presidential campaign. Look, there's Clinton deluding herself that she's still got a shot! McCain wears extra-baggy trousers so no one can see his Depends! Obama's already getting snookered into a manly man contest by McCain ("Oh, I'll go to Iraq. You don't think I've got the guts to go there? You don't know the B.O., little old white man!")!

Recently, though, I'm fatigued. I've got nothing. McCain releases his medical records, and lo and behold he's not as healthy as he claims to be? How is that surprising? I can't freak out about that. Obama goes to a black church? Whaddayaknow! Bill Clinton insists there's a conspiracy against Hillary's winning the nomination? Wait - this one is actually true. But instead of it being limited to the right wing, as Bill claims, it's actually the entire voting body of the Democratic party. Who knew the sinister plot was so elaborate that the entire electorate was involved?

But really, none of this is novel. We've been hearing about it now for about a month. I was looking forward to focusing for a while on something else, like Israel's awfully talky non-talks with Syria and Hamas. And then I saw this.

Blacks have race traitors, the French have...the French, WASPs have liberals, and we the Jews have the Honorable Independent Senator from Connecticut, Joseph Lieberman.

It's one thing for Joe to sell out the Democrats. Reasonable men can differ about policies, and certainly he can't support the party after it chose to back a guy named Ned in the last election. But we in the Tribe thought we knew him differently. We thought he was the grumpy guy in shul who was a little too aggressive about telling people to shut up during the rabbi's speech. Now it turns out he's the crazy guy in shul who crosses himself before he opens the ark.

The only appeal of the Rev. Hagee to Jews seems to be his influence over the flow of many millions of dollars. Can't we for once overcome this destructive stereotype? Can't our Jewish leaders, just this one time, ignore the aroma, the glorious texture and taste, of sweaty, dirty cash (5 commas? Really? Was that appropriate?)? No doubt Joey has the extra burden of being a politician, so his attraction to the "Green Devil" is worse than your typical old Jewish man. But can't we take a broader look at this issue? Here, I'll lay it out as best I can:

What if the Saudi royal family, taking time out of their busy schedule of oppressing women and swimming in their olympic-sized pool of money, started offering Jews around the world all kinds of money on the condition they make aliyah? "Here's $500,000. Move back to Israel."

First, who wouldn't take that deal? Second, wouldn't that give you reason to pause and consider what their ultimate aim is? Why Saudi Arabia, traditionally and presently no friend of Israel or Jews in general, seems to be so generous and helpful all of a sudden? Wouldn't you want to ask "what's with the change of heart?" And when, with a huge grin, they said "no reason. We just love the Jews!" Wouldn't that sort of nonanswer make you even more suspicious?

And here's Senator Lieberman, politically the highest-ranked Jew in America, boasting of his support for a man and a movement whose final aim is the destruction of the Jewish people, either by apocalyptic conflagration or divine retribution.

Ahhh, there's the frustrated rage I was missing. Thanks, Joe. You've helped me to hate again.

Ready, set, VENT!

- Ehud Olmert, you need to go. You've done nothing during your Prime Minister...ship but fail at negotiating with Arabs and Palestinians, lost enough face against Hezbollah in Lebanon that most people think they won that little skirmish, and taken money from American Jews. Kudos, sir!
You are everything wrong with the Israeli center. You seem serious about creating a two-state solution, but you are corrupt and rotten, and therefore an embarrassment to the country and the people. So go. Now.

- Fuck you, Spurs. Now I have to root for a Lakers-Celtics final. Hoo-frigging-rah.

- Commas are for wusses. I am now all about periods. You want a pause? Go play a video game.

- This one isn't actually a complaint. To me the sign of a civilized nation is respect for the word of law. One might think Boston, with its smoke-freeness and its gay marriage and its myriad of crosswalks, would embody civility. Instead I had to go all the way to smoker heaven Pittsburgh to find a population that respects the law that matters to me most - the law of physics.
If a large hulking object is hurtling toward you with no indication it plans to slow down, do you step in front of it? If you're suicidal, or a Boston pedestrian, yes. Even as a walker myself - on occasion - I loathed my fellow foot-traffic, strutting arrogantly against lights. Brakes would squeal and shudder while some jackass yelled at the traumatized drivers: "I'm in the crosswalk, you ass!"
But here in Pittsburgh there are many engineers. And they've all studied Newton. And they know what happens when a large object moving at high speed impacts a smaller, squishier object. So they wait until they have the light, and then they walk. And as they cross they warily eye the idling cars, because you never know.

- On the other hand, no one jaywalks. There's no car within 300 yards! Just cross the street already!

- As much as I should decry Agriprocessors' use of illegal workers (especially given my ode to the law a couple of paragraphs ago), I won't. I like my meat as cheap as possible, and illegal workers allow me to buy fruits and vegetables - for Wife and Child. Not for me. - and meat, glorious meat. Now I have to pay more. Thanks for nothing, INS. Go arrest terrorist watchlist suspect Nelson Mandela.

- I don't care what excuses you make up for your kid the first time he makes the cow-hamburger connection. Kosher has nothing to do with the ethical treatment of cows or chickens or sheep. It never will. You know what's ethical? Not killing and eating animals. Not drastically thinning global fish populations. So stop whining and finish your steak.

- You know who should be allowed to cover Tom Waits? Nobody.

Sprechen zie boredom?

These days I'm helping out on a project. Ordinarily, one says "project," and images of construction paper and sweet, delicious paste come to mind. But the particular project I'm working on has no such creative outlet. I don't even have internet access: all of a sudden I have three extra hours in my workday that used to be strictly reserved for checking e-mail. 

My day is spent thusly: I get to review hundreds of documents produced in conjunction with a lawsuit against a multinational conglomerate. Relevancy, confidentiality, privilege - such are the slots into which I organize my many articles, e-mails, and memoranda. From there they are further broken down by keywords, issues, authors, etc. And ordinarily, even this ridiculously boring task would occupy me - people at work write some crazy stuff, believing their correspondence will remain forever secret. 

But not on this "project." Oh, no sirree Bob. No, the docs I have to review are about chemical compounds and drug cocktails (and not the fun drug cocktails, like heroin and vodka. Mmmmm, I love my Silent Killer). And sure, I'm not any sort of science person - a Mr. Wizard, a Bill Nye, Science Guy. Frankly, I think science is what people substitute for religion if they don't like a good story. And the formulas, the Venn diagrams? I'll take my invisible, omniscient deity, thanks very much.

Forget the science stuff, though. What really makes this job awkward is that most of the documents are in German. And no, I'm not going near the Jewness/German thing, just superficially, the language barrier makes my day endless. I'm supposed to discern what szprefrugenfargen means, and how it relates to ligands and chelates (who's the science guy now? Look out!)? All I want to do is read the frigging e-mail, and Dr. Fraulein has to be all consonant-y about some upcoming vacation. Helga! English! 

Long Island ≠ Jewish

Last night, after a long day of playing pickup ball with octogenarians and avoiding In-Laws' questions about my professional intentions as to their fair city, I settled down to enjoy Night of Too Many Stars, a Comedy Central special to raise money for Autism. No, I don't know what the connection is, and no, I'm not going to make a joke about it. If you want that sort of humor, read Kissing Suzy Kolber. Seriously. Stop reading this crap. Go there.

I give the whole phonathon a B+, for the effort. They had a ton of stars, you got to see Tina Fey groped by some corporate flack, and Sara Silverman did that version of Amazing Grace where she harmonizes with her vagina. So that's something, I guess.

There were really only two parts of the show that grabbed my attention and shook it like a colicky baby.

The first was Chris Rock and Steven Wright, doing each other's material. Steven Wright did surprisingly ok - it was funny hearing him say "cracker" in ebonics, and it turns out that you don't have to scream Chris Rock's jokes in a grating whine to make them work.

No, the weird thing was hearing Rock do Steven Wright's jokes. I'd heard them all, and to see Chris Rock attempt a deadpan was unnerving. His persona is all inflection and emoting, whereas Wright may as well be a paralyzed wino, mumbling and drooling at passersby. Steven Wright's jokes, or bits, or missives, or whatever, are truly unfunny when told by someone else. I don't think Chris Rock got more than a sympathy chuckle for any of the jokes he told, while Wright got plenty of laughs doing Rock's material. So the question that kept me up the rest of the night is this: Is it that Chris Rock's stuff is just universally hilarious, or that Steven Wright's material is so wrapped up in Wright's persona that, unless you try and impersonate him, you'll never get a laugh trying his set?

The last thing that got to me was Rosie O'Donnell's set. Evidently, now that she's been booted from the View, and Donald Trump has moved on to perfecting a new combover look, she's bored. And lonely. And the lesbian jokes just aren't hitting their marks anymore. So what does Rosie decide to do? She checks out Kabbalah. And wouldn't you know it, but Long Island + Kabbalah = Jewish! So she can do a whole host of jokes about schmoozing with Pearl and Gitty, and say words like mishpucha, and now she's Ethel Merman.

Listen, and listen good, Rosie. Drop the Jewish jokes, and back slowly away. Just because you're large, have brown hair, and sound like Portnoy's mother doesn't mean you get to mock the Tribe. If you watched the thing, it was like a bad homage to the Seinfeld "Anti-Dentite" episode. She puts on a red string, and then gets to pretend she also knows how to make matza balls? Absolutely not.

Rosie O'Donnell is not only a lesbian, she's also Irish Catholic. She's been on the View. If she can't make comedy gold out of that wealth of material, then she should stay off the stage. Which, I think, would work for everyone involved.

Taxes suck, waa waa waa

I understand people who complain about taxes. I really do. You made the money, you should keep it. Obviously. My only problem is that these people are Communist pinkos, who want nothing more than to freeload. Go back to Russia-town, Stalinists!

You pay for cars, houses, clothes, everything except music and porn on the internet. Why exactly should you get to live in America for free? It's a great gig - we have good movies, decent restaurants, and football, miles and miles away cooler than soccer. We have the greatest, most powerful army in the world that fights wars with only the most technically advanced weaponry, when Congress actually spends that money on the troops, as opposed to contractors (just kidding, Blackwater. Please don't kidnap and torture my family).

Living in America is a privilege, not a right. Don't like it? Move to Iceland or Ireland, the only developed countries with average tax rates lower than ours. And it's never really the people without money who complain, is it? It's the ones with plenty of money, who can afford their own health care, but just don't want to support anyone else. Well you know what? If you agree not to take anything from the government - not Social Security, or Medicaid, or Medicare, take 911 off your speed dial, remove all the smoke alarms because you can fight your own fires, you big burly men you - then hey, don't bother paying the taxes.

The government has a $3 trillion deficit. Eventually, they're going to have to raise taxes because they don't have enough money, and none of us (other than Chinese immigrants, maybe) want the national anthem to be in Mandarin in 30 years. So suck it up, pay your taxes, and find something a little bit more interesting to base your vote on, like, say, sound fiscal policy, or a reasonable solution to the drug problem, or whether a particular candidate has a crazy preacher. Because even that is a more legitimate beef than bitching about how much Uncle Sam is ripping from your liver-spotted arthritic claw.

You know who demands to tear down the market system, and get things for free? Welfare recipients, and Bolsheviks. America gets to charge what the market will bear, that's your whole capitalism thing, right?

Child shall never be a rightist!

Wife has been spreading vile insinuations and rumors about Child. 

"Oh, look, he's using his right hand again! I think he's going to be a righty!"

Shut it, odious woman! Bite that tongue! I will not have my boy abandoned to the common, to the oppressive "norm." Righties have the numbers, the history, the language (Latin for left? Sinister), the spiral notebook, the baseball glove, the guitar, the high school desk, the scissors. They believe this dominance will continue indefinitely. 

How wrong they are.

The left rises as the right sleeps. We plot, using our legal pads and smudge-free pens, to overthrow the right's bloated complacency. Sure, there have been missteps (Ned Flanders, paragon of lefty-ness? Oops. And by Matt Groenig, lefty bulwark! That was a paddlin'. Oh, and Maybe Mike Vick as lefty QB Messiah, wasn't the best choice), but now we've got our own presidential candidate. Obama, the Magic Lefty. He's done more to forward our cause than Lefty Grove, My Left Foot, Left Behind, and other left-focused cultural highlights put together. 

And yet, the right won't go away. You'd think we'd be safe in our own home, but just yesterday Wife, in hysterics as I tried to use her discriminatory scissors to cut some bubble wrap, finally couldn't hold back. "Are you ok? Can I help you? Here, why don't I take care of that, and you go do something that caters to your... unique talents."

For too long we've had to deal with this sort of condescension. Child will not be raised in an environment that disdains a discreet, substantial minority. So I've tied his right hand to his side, and only present toys to his left side. I don't use the word right; if he's correct, I say so, and if he wants to turn not-left, I figure he wants to go "wrong." 

I'm sure he'll turn out healthy. But this, lefty parents, is what you have to do to combat thousands of years of oppression. Stand with me, and we shall overthrow the rightist regime.

F**k you, Ralph Nader

Fuck you, Ralph Nader. I know I already said that in the title, but I'm saying it again. Here, once more - Fuck you, Ralph Nader.

Let it go, you consumer watchdog-humping bastard. These past 7 years of awful governing are your fault. Go back to insisting on safety standards for cars, and not ruining our country.

This is obviously not about 2004, or really any of your presidential runs except the big one. The one where there actually was a difference between Al Gore and President Cokehead Jesusfreak. The one where you decided that it was time for a 3rd party. And that, most of all, is what I blame you for, and why you can go get waterboarded in a secret American prison somewhere in Eastern Europe.

A 3rd party is a great idea. If it were legitimate, it would turn the system on its ear, and even if it doesn't provoke real debate on the issues, at least it gives a little more geometrical diversity to the conventional one-on-one of the Democrats v. the GOP.

And with your little stunt in 2000, you set it back 50 years. And you decide to come out now, when the two frontrunners both appeal to independents, and to many voters equally represent change and a new direction? Fuck you, you deadweight on the bloated corpse of democracy. Are your ideas original? No, they are not. Have you accomplished anything significant other than the resurrection of the Republican party? Again, no. Are you even going to get your name on all 50 ballots? Not if you don't have any money. And who's going to donate, Karl Rove?

Or maybe I'm looking at this wrong. Maybe your reemergence from under your slime-covered rock will remind people what happened last time you decided to get involved, and how badly that turned out for everyone. Your candidacy could actually be a boon, if this is your message:

"I'm running for president so you won't vote for me. I'm here to hark back to what happened in 2000, when I helped the Texan from Connecticut steal an election. So remember, voters, what that led to, and what the danger is of supporting me. I represent nothing other than a warning sign, a 'there but for the grace of G-d goeth the nation.' So support the cause, and don't vote for me. Because a vote for Ralph Nader is a vote for the status quo, it is a non-vote, it is time better spent emptying your mind with reality television and eating fast food. Thank you, and G-d bless America."

There. I almost convinced myself that his candidacy may actually benefit the country.
Almost.