More New Year Thoughts

Since Rosh Hashana is a time of both celebration and reflection, here are two interesting quotes I came across in the past week...

From "The Crisis Last Time" by Ron Suskind:

The next day, [former Treasury secretary] O’Neill was in Florida addressing chief executives of America’s top 20 financial services companies... many of them large Republican contributors... One told the Treasury secretary that he’d “rather resign” than be held accountable for “what’s going on in my company.”

(emphasis mine)

From "The Home Front: A soldier's father wrestles with the ambiguities of Iraq" by George Packer:

...Paul Wolfowitz... once wrote that American leadership required “demonstrating that your friends will be protected and taken care of, that your enemies will be punished and that those who refuse to support you will live to regret having done so"...

Lesson: Responsibility for your actions and morality are for suckers. The rich can do what they want. L'Shanah tova!

The World is Ending!

For years, I've said that a Cubs victory in the World Series is a sign of the apocalypse. We have a potential global financial meltdown just over the horizon. The Cubs are about to begin the first round of playoffs...

I'm conflicted. I so want to the Cubs to win, although I wouldn't mind an end to the horrific acid reflux that torments me at this moment, maybe the end of the world is overkill. Seriously folks, I'm not ready for the world to end. I've got a few books opportunities in the pipeline, I want to savor another Mars bar, and I have never visited Spain.

Yipes.

L'Shanah Tova to the Inferior Women!

Tonight marks the start of the Jewish New Year. According to ads in today's New York Times wishing me a happy new year from Macy's and Bloomingdale's, it is 5769 on the Jewish calendar. That's a long time to survive repeated attempts to eradicate the Jews, if I do say so myself.

In keeping with the holiday theme, the Times ran an article about the overlap of Ramadan and Rosh Hashana this year. It seems that the streets and pathways in Old Jerusalem are more crowded with people studiously ignoring one another than ever. What I like about the article is that there is something in it sure to piss off everyone. (Just check out the comments.) Now that's the holiday spirit!

Actually, the first comment on the article, from esthermiriam in DC, is exactly where I wanted to go with this. She wrote: "And those who control both those holy sites do agree on other thing: that women should be physically separated from men for prayer there..." In the article, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz said of the Western Wall, "this wall makes even those with hearts of stone shed a tear." Oh, Rabbi. Let me explain my tears: they are tears of anger, frustration, and humiliation. For my own people not only separate the women and men, but give the women an inferior place at which to pray. We are accorded less than a quarter of the Wall for our reflections. We are given prayer books and other equipment that are inferior to those provided to the men. I'm not even sure we'd be allowed to read from the Torah on our side. When we live according to our standards and interpretations of Judaism, we are physically and verbally assaulted by the thugs (i.e. - the Hasidim) who control the Wall. So, yes, when I think of the wall, I shed many tears.

L'shanah tova, and peace be upon us. Not only between various religions of the world, but between the factions within them. May the universal religious war on women end in 5769.

Good-Bye, Shea Stadium. Hello, Wrigley Field - Go Cubs!

With three outs left until the sad end of the Mets 2008 season, I am not very hopeful that there will be a post season. Husband says that if this leads to the dismissal of horrific team general manager Omar Minaya, he can live with yet another year in which the Mets crumple in September. Plus I will need not be conflicted about my desire to see the Cubs win the World Series for the first time in 100 years with my status as a committed Mets fan. (Had the Mets won the wild card, they would face the Cubs in the first round of playoffs.)

That said, I look forward to watching the Cubs crush the Phillies in the second round of post season play. To repeat one of my favorite childhood ditties, "Go Cubs go!/Go Cubs go!/Hey, Chicago, whaddya say?/The Cubs are gonna win today!/Go Cubs go!"

OK, I Lied

The Mets are not dead to me. This is the problem with baseball. You swear the bum (team) off, and then they sweet talk you by winning a game. I guess we shall see what this afternoon's game brings.

Ghosts

For years, Dr. P and I were close friends with Dr. P's roommate (DRM). After graduation, DRM went to grad school in the Boston area, Dr. P attended med school in NYC, as I enrolled in a masters program at Columbia University. Although we were somewhat scattered up and down the east coast, we kept in close touch with one another and a few other NYU pals (including Dr. F, who was in dental school at the time) through a listserv that we called laterchicas because Dr. P always ended her email with the phrase, "Later chicas."

It's hard to emphasize how much I valued laterchicas as I struggled to fit in at Columbia. Every break I had from class, I ran to the computer lab to check and see what the word was from my chicas. Those were good times.

Not long after I graduated from Columbia and got married, DRM dropped out of our lives with no explanation, although Dr. P and I suspect that it had something to do with her plans to marry a man she only knew for a few months. Over the last eight years, Dr. P and I have speculated about what happened and what she was up to. Then last night, she friended me on Facebook. While I am happy to hear from her and glad that she now has a lovely family, it really opened an old wound. I hope that we can resolve the past and rebuild our relationship.

On a not at all serious note, but continuing the theme of hauntings, I publicly announce that the Mets are dead to me for the remaining two games in the 2008 season. I spit on their symbolic team grave. If they somehow resurrect themselves and qualify for the post-season, I will now feel no conflict about cheering the Cubs to victory.

The Great Schlep and Usage of the Expression "Douche Nozzle"

I love Sarah Silverman for many reasons. Not only does she employ my favorite insult (douche nozzle) in this video, but she encourages Jews to help their grandparents understand why they should vote for Barack Obama in her extra special offensively hilarious manner.