Suis Je Charlie Hebdo?

#Je suis Charlie Hebdo; #Je ne suis Charlie Hebdo. Hashtag slogans are corny, no matter what the cause. If at first they may spark a quick burst of solidarity with the human catastrophe du jour, by the second time you see them, they are already stale.
The minute #JeSuisCharlieHebdo took the internet by storm as a kneejerk protest against the despicable murders in Paris of the satirical magazine's cartoonists, staff and one Muslim policeman (#JeSuisAhmed), many pundits took to clarify that they were not Charlie Hebdo. For Charlie Hebdo's particular brand of satire is indeed mostly leaden, offensive, and unfunny. To me, unfunny is the most offensive fault of comedy, its most unforgivable sin, because it is usually tone deaf, mean spirited, and many times, deeply corrosive. Totalitarian governments have always used unfunny humor for nefarious ends. The sense of humor of the likes of Hitler, Stalin and Mao was to deride, stereotype and dehumanize people. Often, they did this through caricature. Totalitarians don't tend to have a funny sense of humor. They have vitriol, which is not funny. They can viciously deride others but tolerate no jokes about themselves. So it is with fundamentalist islamists. They are totalitarians: they abide no dissent. Punishment means death.
Those who are now bravely stating that they are not Charlie Hebdo complain about the offensive nature of the magazine's cartoons, about the fact that they cross a line, are racist, are a part of the mainstream media (this apparently is some sort of sin, even though it is an independent magazine with a modest circulation), and aim to offend the most downtrodden sector of French society, in this case, poor, unassimilated, discriminated Muslims who are there as a result of French colonialism. According to those who are not Charlie, the sin of Charlie Hebdo's brand of humor is that it is exclusionary, racist, and hateful. This may be true, but it is no reason to die for.
The difference between Charlie Hebdo's heavyhanded satire and that of, say, the Nazi regime, is that the magazine felt it was involved in a fight to preserve and exercise their right to be offensive; to use, and even abuse their freedom of expression guaranteed under the law. What is permitted as free speech in France may be debatable, and perhaps in the future, open to change. The French obsession with insisting that their citizens be no different clings on to an idealistic notion of a secular republic which seems increasingly unattainable, as in reality, communities in France are not only very different but alienated from one another. These are crucial questions for how France deals with its ethnic and religious minorities. But this is also not a reason for the murder of these people.
Those wounded by Charlie Hebdo's humor could resort to a number of responses, from angry letters to the editor, to legal recourse, to disseminating funny or unfunny cartoons about French liberals themselves; God knows there's plenty of comic material there. These brainwashed, ignorant idiots opted for murder.
My problem with the train of thought that focuses on Charlie Hebdo's morally suspect humor is that it provides a slippery slope towards virtually blaming the victim. The French government had asked the magazine to stop publishing inflammatory drawings, the magazine had been threatened with violence before; hence, they had it coming. This is dangerous thinking because it detracts from the fact that in no universe is publishing offensive cartoons about anything a justification for murder. If we become inured to the abject absurdity of killing someone for their opinions, we will cease living in a free world. We might as well welcome back the Inquisition.
All those who start their harangues assuring us that of course they in no way justify the killings and then go on to blame France, the white man, colonialism, racism, and in effect, the offensive cartoons, may have a point. But they are mis-assigning blame. The blame lies squarely with islamist terrorist groups that recruit the criminal and most desperate elements in Muslim communities to terrorize the world for their own political agenda. If these kind of arguments take hold, someone can arrive at the conclusion that the Jews who were shopping at that kosher market in Paris when they were taken hostage had it coming to them because Israel, and Gaza and, you know the drill. Or that the people who died in 9/11 deserved it because of America's imperialist, idiotic foreign policy. No. Nobody deserves terror.
Another false moral equivalency troubles me. Some complain, rightly, that when 16 Europeans get killed everybody has a fit, but no one cares about over 200,000 Syrian dead or whatever other large number of non-white human beings are being currently traumatized elsewhere. Certainly, this is a good opportunity to remind everyone that islamic fundamentalism is killing and terrorizing far more innocent people in Africa and the Middle East than French citizens in Paris, but the comparison is uneven. The reason for the massive outpouring of shock and outrage at the Charlie Hebdo's murders stems less from us callously caring only for our our own, than from the infernal disproportion, the chilling insanity of killing someone over some drawings. It hits closer to home, not because we are indifferent or racist, but because most of us do not live in war ravaged countries, in hellish situations that rage on for years for which our outrage has muted into helpless despair. I do not argue with the fact that we should be equally tormented by every injustice that takes place in the world, but this brutal attack was shocking. People reacted with shock. Why are we being taken to task for our outrage?

The democratization of opinion in the internet has brought us a new kind of creature: the hectoring social media commenter.  The comfort and anonymity of our screens now serve as our own personal bully pulpits. Some use their virtual soapbox to spew the vilest defamatory commentary. Racists say vicious things in forums with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. Antisemites are already claiming that the attacks in Paris were orchestrated by the Mossad. On a thread online, a commenter declared that she could bestow no sympathy to the cartoonists, but that she felt for their families. Who is she, God? What kind of senseless, asinine posture is that?
Among liberals with a conscience, the fashion is to be offended by everything and to accuse everything and everybody of racism. In this cacophony of opinion, everything is equally racist. If someone decides to dress up as a geisha and they don't happen to be Japanese, that is decried as racist cultural appropriation (a particularly insidious academic term that drives me crazy). Wearing a geisha costume to a party is equivalent to saying that Blacks provoke their own deaths by not obeying the law. What happens then is that the actual meaning and manifestations of racism get watered down and equalized with irrelevant, politically correct whining.
Because the persona we project publicly on the internet is who we wish to be, rather than who we really are in our innermost hearts -- flawed, prejudiced and far from saints -- online, people become moral crusaders. Apparently, on the internet people have never had a contradictory thought; prejudice has never crossed their minds. Most of us are guilty of harboring prejudices, but all we hear online is a chorus of insufferable self-righteousness.
I am not Charlie Hebdo because there are wittier, less toxic ways to champion freedom of thought, belief and expression. But I am Charlie Hebdo because I should not live in fear of a violent death for expressing my opinions, offensive as they might be to anyone.

A Recurring Nightmare

Deja vu all over again. Every time that a new provocation threatens to deepen the violence between Israel and the Palestinians is yet another time of anguish and despair. Why is this conflict so intractable? The reasons are many and complex.
But nobody really wants to hear them, on either side. In the now hysterical echo chamber of social media, it boils down to one thing on both sides of the divide: propaganda.
I don't trust that most people, regardless of their stance on the matter, can tell the difference between information and propaganda. Propaganda is manipulative, easy to digest and aims to inflame passions. Information, on the contrary, is hard work. It relies on facts. It's supposed to be objective and most importantly, it makes you think, consider, weigh, make up your mind. It's too much work, so people go with propaganda.
Well, I'm sick of the propaganda on both sides. I'm sick of scrolling down to rivers of  hatred unleashed upon Israel, the likes of which other terrible crises, indeed even worse crises, never manage to provoke. I don't hear such passionate outrage about Assad's ongoing genocide of his own people, or about the depredations of ISIS in Iraq, about the horrifying perennial conflicts in Africa, about America's drone attacks, or even about the humanitarian crisis of undocumented immigrant children right on our border. Such outpourings of virulent outrage are reserved exclusively for Israel because Israel is perceived to be the sole bully, the oppressor, the eternal aggressor in this conflict. Also, in many cases, because it allows antisemitism to come safely out of the woodwork. And please don't tell me that I perceive antisemitism because as a Jew, I am too sensitive. Antisemitism is like porn: I know it when I see it.
Newsflash for both Jews and non-Jews alike: being critical of the policies of the State of Israel does not make you an antisemite. Many Israelis and Jews, myself included, disagree with the continued occupation and other right wing policies of the current Israeli government. We are appalled and concerned by them. That does not mean we do not support Israel. On the contrary, we are worried that they are detrimental to Israel's survival. We want a better way.
Hating Israel, on the other hand, claiming that you are an anti-zionist, questioning Israel's right to exist, and spewing vitriol against Jews, that is a different story.
I am equally sick of Israeli propaganda about thousands of Hamas missiles (not remotely hitting anything, yet) and how the kind Israeli army sends leaflets out to warn Palestinians, and how restrained it is. And what would you do if your neighborhood was showered with rockets every day? These spiffy memes neglect a fundamental issue: they neglect to consider the occupation. They neglect to consider that the Palestinians living under it in permanent humiliation and distress, have a right to fight it, just like Israel has a right to its self-defense.
No one looks at a map. Well, here's another map:

No one cares about the geopolitics, the demographics, and the frightening political complexities of the Middle East. People are busy posting pictures. Of fizzling flying missiles, to Israel's public relations misfortune, rarely landing on top of as yet unscathed civilians; on the other side, and far more damaging in every sense, of scores of Palestinian children killed and maimed by the Israelis. You tell me what provokes more outrage.
But much worse than the propaganda are most comments. Caught between two sides of a world citizenry that, with the advent of social media, has taken it upon itself to be the bearer of bad news, defender and apologist for one cause or the other, one is at the mercy of unrestrained lunacy, bordering on idiocy, on both sides.

Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is a rapidly spreading cancer that threatens its existence. It is morally untenable. It is fraying the fabric of civilization, let alone democracy, in Israel. In my view, it has become a grave strategic error. All it has unleashed is a threat to Israel's survival as a modern nation, from the oppression of the Palestinians to the unconscionable coddling of religious Jews in the expanding settlements. If Israel continues its path towards the extreme right, it may survive as an obscurantist theocracy, but that, my fellow Jews, should be cause for alarm and our most vocal opposition. Because if that happens, it will be the end of Israel. 
Having said this, many people see this conflict as Israel's sole responsibility. They choose to ignore the fact that the Palestinians are also oppressed by the vested, byzantine interests of the Arab world, to whom the Palestinians are a convenient tool for directing elsewhere the frustrations of their own oppressed citizens.
The only way out is to find the political will of all parties involved: of Israel, of the different Palestinian factions, of the neighboring Arab states and the rest of the Arab world, of Iran, of the US, the EU, Russia, China, etc, to sit down to serious negotiations and commit political will and economic resources to find a viable Palestinian state or some other option that ensures Israel's right to exist, preferably in peace.
Good luck with that.
Still, nobody, it seems to me, is thinking creatively. Part of my despair comes from realizing that Israel always falls right into Hamas's traps. I admire Israel's technological ingenuity and its human capital, but it amazes me that it has been unable to come up with a surprising, out of the box strategy against its enemies that does not entail a massive show of force, making Israel look like the worst villain the world has ever known. Think of something that will find its enemies off-guard. It can't be easy, but the predictability of the reaction is getting to be very depressing.
I have no solutions, but, perhaps unlike most people screaming like banshees about the conflict, I think about them. What's more, I've seen a map, and I have lived in Israel. I am not a Pollyanna (see maps). I am well aware of how a hostile Arab world in turmoil must look like from Israel's vantage point (hint: not good). But at this point, there has to be a more intelligent way to protect and defend Israel.
In the meantime, this is it. I will refrain from posting or commenting, defending or attacking, arguing and wasting my breath. If you bother with a screed for or against, don't expect an answer. I'm tuning out of this nightmare. Wake me when it's over.

Response To A Long Time Reader

I got a comment from "A Long Time Reader" relating to my post on gender discrimination in the advertising business. You can see the post and the comment here.

This is my response:

Thanks for reading, Long Time Reader.
Don't you find it a little naive to think there are no women out there making it on their own? Have you heard of the gal who wrote the Harry Potter books? Oprah Winfrey? I know several women entrepreneurs that have started their own businesses, totally on their own, without expecting anything from anyone but respect and a fair shake, and they have it much tougher than the guys. Lines of credit don't open as easily for them, people don't listen as seriously. They are hardworking, intelligent risk-takers. They are not any less capable than any guy. In fact, they have to work harder to overcome stereotypes and ingrained attitudes. It is not their fault. We just happen to have a deeply ingrained, millennial culture that assumes that men are natural leaders and women are not, because for centuries, women were not allowed to read, study in universities, vote, have professions, have their own businesses, or simply be independent human beings. They were supposed to stay home, breed, and obey the male. How could one compete? To this day, some men still believe they get to decide on what women do with their own sexuality and their pregnancies. The nerve.
At this point, the discrimination, the patronizing, the looking down on women, are embedded in our cultural DNA. It may not always be conscious, or malicious, but that's the way it is.
Look at porn. Porn is a good example of the imbalance between the genders.
Why is it always the woman who is shown to be acted upon, penetrated, manhandled, increasingly with more violence and alienation? Why isn't there a more equal porn where both men and women are objects of erotic desire? Because that is how men look at women. And men don't want to look at other men. And women have been taught that they can't really express themselves sexually. That they should be pure and chaste and not sluts. It's a man's world. And now, there are entire generations of kids who grow up thinking that the ridiculous, ugly, pounding sex in porn is normal sex. You guys are not doing a good job.
Women who object to this state of affairs are called "whiners" by people like you.
I agree that women have to fight hard for equality and fairness. As I said in my post, we have to start our own fight. But men will defend their status quo tooth and nail. Why? Because men know, as the fanatics of every religion that wants to keep women down know (pretty much all of them), that the minute women have truly equal footing, this will mean real freedom, real democracy, real civilization, real human progress. Keeping women down is the first, most basic, most intimate form of human oppression. It is the essence of barbarism.
The question we should be asking is why women have tolerated and abetted this through the ages.
But in this day and age, when religious belief is utterly irrelevant, and we are not hunting Mammoths and living in caves, women have every right to demand equality, fairness and respect. That is not whining or begging, that is plain dignity.
Modernity, however, is no guarantee of civilization. Look at the Holocaust. Look at every genocide since then. Look at the American South up to the 1960's. Look at two young football players who gang raped a girl recently and bragged about it all over social media. Someone on CNN was sorry that their brilliant future careers were over.
It is still imperative for those who are treated unfairly to fight for equal opportunity and justice.
As for your opinions about begging blacks and grousing Jews, they seem to me pernicious and naive generalizations. There are many successful black people, like our very own President Obama; and there are countless Jews who beg and don't have a pot to piss on.
If certain groups don't have the political, economic, or social power to change their situation, what are they supposed to do? If Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement had not "whined" and demanded, would there still be segregation and lynchings in the South? If women had not demanded the right to an education, to vote, to equal pay? We'd all be attending mindless Tupperware parties in Stepford.
That's not progress. That is regression.
In short, I think we do not protest enough, but I suspect that we have very different worldviews. Thank you for your readership.

Now Showing At A Theater Near You

Battle of the Biopics. Whoever has the best make up, wins.
The surprisingly smart Life Of Pi.

American Psycho

It's that time of year when yet another gun massacre happens in America, when we almost tear our hair out in disbelief at the dangerous psychosis of those in this country who, against all reason, common sense, or morality, equate freedom with having "the right" to privately own weapons designed to kill as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time. There is absolutely no reason in God's green earth that a housewife should keep, not one, but three semi-automatic weapons at home. None whatsoever. There is no human law that can justify such an evil monstrosity, let alone the horrifying consequences of it. The fact that Mrs. Lanza, lover of guns, was able to purchase and keep those weapons at home is evil incarnate already. We need not wait for a deranged white male to illustrate this with yet another bloodbath.
Indeed, the Second Amendment, which many are hellbent in misreading and protecting, does not allow for that. It allows for you to form a well-regulated militia and arm yourself with 17th century muskets against the King of England. It's time to dismantle this irrelevant, ancient law, just as we did away with slavery, or enacted civil rights, or other sensible laws that protect our citizenry from human evil.
I guess gun loving Americans don't really care about how this is perceived by the rest of humanity. Because, surely, no other place on Earth has this conundrum. Everywhere where reason prevails, and civilization reigns, and even where they don't, nobody thinks it smart, let alone NORMAL, to arm guards outside of kindergartens, or to give college students weapons. Next thing we know, we should demand a Glock with the price of our movie ticket, just in case. Everywhere in the world but here, this is sheer insanity.
As for Wayne La Pierre (a villainous sounding name, is it not?), the NRA and the rest of this developmentally arrested country, I propose that as we ban, repeal, and burn to the crisp the Second Amendment, we also outlaw once and for all the concept of the "Good Guys vs. The Bad Guys", which is only fit for children the age of those poor little souls mowed down by Adam Lanza. Adults who keep looking at the world in terms of good guys and bad guys are morons, and they seem to be holding us all hostage. They are the ones responsible for our wars, and for encouraging mayhem through violent video games and entertainment. Not a week after Newtown, I saw a preview for a big Hollywood movie, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, the two kids now grown and killing witches with oversized weapons that belong in World War Three. A fairy tale turned by the American imagination into a despicable barrage of firepower, people of flesh and blood made into cartoon characters who think nothing of shooting endless automatic rounds at "the bad guys". This violent pornography is aimed to entertain children younger than Adam Lanza, or Dylan Klebold, all these unsupervised misfits armed with violent video games and computers. And it is exported all over the world. Luckily for the world, their children do not have as much access to guns as ours.
The NRA press conference has been labeled as pathetic. It is much more than that. It is the incarnation of sheer evil. One cannot watch it and not feel soiled, revolted at the insanity, the cynicism, the cognitive dissonance of a proposal that offers to arm guards outside of schools but neglects to blame the ease of getting weapons as the source of the violence. The astounding disrespect, not only to the grieving families of Newtown, but to the entire nation, that is to use this opportunity to encourage paranoia and irrationality, to monger fear about "untold number of monsters" that roam free in our society ready to wreak havoc, without mentioning that it is the NRA that makes it possible for them to have murder weapons in their hands. They waited a week to pipe up and this is the grotesque, putrescent bile that came out of their mouths. Listening to La Pierre is fearing we live in a nightmarish parallel universe absent of moral coherence, rationality and sense, of human understanding. It is absolute infamy.
I wonder if the surviving relatives of all the victims of these American catastrophes aided and abetted by the NRA, could not file a class action suit against the organization, much in the way that people sue for millions when they burn themselves with hot food at McDonald's.
Police departments (not the most liberal constituency), mayors of cities, concerned citizens, most people with half a brain, we all feel powerless against the influence of a lobby for the gun industry.
No matter how many statistics scream bloody murders in armed homes, no matter how many countries like Japan and Australia have minimal homicide rates because of stringent gun control laws, here we haven't been able to do anything about it, for no good reason at all.
Let's imagine what Adam Lanza or all the other unhinged shooters could have inflicted in their unfathomable rage without the aid of endless rounds of lethal ammunition. I hold the NRA, every member of Congress, our Supreme Court and our President responsible for the murder of all these children and adults, until they find it in their hearts to pass stringent gun control laws.

Go Preach To The Choir

iWarning: This is a major rant. If you are sensitive to religion, God, atheists, etc, stop reading now. 

Friday, August 24, 2001: A beautiful afternoon to venture out to Coney Island and eat cold borscht on the Brighton Beach boardwalk. We get on the B train. It is quiet, almost empty and very pleasant.
All of a sudden, a young black man starts preaching at the top of his lungs, even though there are only about 10 people in the car. He hollers about how Jesus saved him, and how we all need to follow Jesus, and every two words it's Jesus this and Jesus that. We are with our dog Petra and we're not about to try to change cars in the middle of the Manhattan Bridge, which is the strategic location where this young man chooses to assault us and take us hostage with his extremely loud spiel.
Imagine that I get on a subway car, and in the loudest voice possible, perhaps even with a sound system to back me up, I start screaming at the top of my lungs that God doesn't exist, and that belief in Him has brought humanity extreme cruelty, human imbecility and suffering, etc. I bet a lot of people wouldn't like it. I bet someone may find this really offensive and tell me to shut up. In olden days, much milder stuff would get you burned at the stake. But when it comes to God and religion, even today, we are all hostages, because nobody has the guts to find this religious blather the most aggressive, obnoxious, offensive, insulting form of imposition. People are afraid to speak up against it, because they know it's a lost battle. It's reason versus obsession. You can't engage, because you will never be right. They also live under the misguided notion that somehow God is off limits. God freaks can attack us mercilessly with their certainties but we can't even ask them politely to zip it. It's a taboo to be against God, and by extension the morons who claim to be His messengers.
God freaks, by the way, are so demonically insane that they are willing to change the definition of female rape ("legitimate", "forcible") in order to outlaw abortion. This is the grossest, vilest form of human perversion. But someone screaming about God in your ear? You have to grin and bear it.
What about Jews? Buddhists? Members of the Church of Elvis? Why do they need to listen to this Jesus crap? It's offensive to anyone who happens to believe in something other than Jesus.
I have no doubt that this enraptured young man may be an effective preacher one day. That is, if he actually finds something interesting to say. Demanding that we must all follow Jesus just because he did does not cut the mustard. It is fucking annoying, and it sounds like a broken record. I once went to the Abyssinian Church in Harlem and heard a smart, compelling preacher. I did not agree with everything he said, but he was thrilling. He had interesting stuff to say. If you are going to force me to listen to this bullshit, at least have the courtesy to make it worth my while. Otherwise, shut the fuck up. I don't want to hear it. Freedom of religion doesn't mean you have the right to force me to listen to your bullshit. The subway is not the place to preach. That's what church is for.

The clown from Hell 

We had a wonderful time by the beautiful sea. We got on the D train at dusk. Again, a few people, tired from a day of sun and noise on Coney Island. A dude half dressed like a clown stands in the middle of the car and starts bleating grotesquely and shaking a pair of very loud maracas. He is appalling. He is the exact opposite of funny; a black hole of pathetic, insane cluelessness. He is so bad, he is scary. He bleats like a tortured animal, screeching "I love you" and shaking the maracas in our faces. Even Petra, who is an expert subway traveller, is rattled by this idiot. A French family of three gapes at him like he is the Antichrist, their teenage son beseeching them in French to move to another car*. But nobody says anything. Understandably, since he may be deranged. We gesture to him gently to tone it down, but he keeps screaming.

Appalled French Family

But then comes the clincher. Turns out he's a Christian, and God and Jesus and all that fucking unholy crap from utter HELL. Of course he is a Christian: he knows that's how he gets away with murder. One could call the police on him and get him busted for being a public nuisance. And that's what I should have done. Call 311. But they might give him a pass. Why? 'Cause he's a Christian.
A young black woman eggs him on, obviously making fun of him. He latches on to her, but it turns ugly the minute he finds out that she thinks he's crazy, not funny. He starts hurling abuse at her. The Christian clown that one second ago was boasting that he never curses and he just wants to "entertain and give joy", has a mouth like a sewer, even in the presence of young, scared children. And still, the parents keep quiet. He and the girl start having a ferocious argument. He mentions the word "Christian" once again and that's where I lose it. I scream at them both to shut up. I ask him to please pipe down. We want quiet, I demand. This fat moron comes right at me, and starts insulting me. I tell him what he is doing is aggressive. The crazy black girl actually stands on her seat and looks like she is about to jump on him. Finally he gets off the train, still complaining loudly that he's a Christian. Like he can't believe that we are all evil for not letting him assault us with his deranged screaming.
This is New York. The reason why people do shit like this on subways is because they know we are all afraid to engage with them and put them in their place. I can ignore and tolerate all kinds of annoyances, but religious people trying to impose their beliefs on me, that makes me righteous angry, regardless of faith. Using Jesus as an excuse to pester people is even worse.
I don't go around trying to convert people to atheism. Your faith is your own damn business and you have no right to hoist it up on me in a public place, unless it is a temple and I'm walking through its doors of my own accord. Goddammit.




*Moving to another car is pointless. They may follow suit.

War On Religion

I'm starting it. Who's with me?
I'd like to deflect all those accusations by Republicans that Obama is waging a war on religion. I'm the one who's doing that, so send all your queries to me.
Every day I wage my silent, thankless battle about the spreading idiocy of religion of all denominations in public and political life, where it has no place.
For instance, it was rather amazing to see a panel convened by Sean Hannity asking 20 clergymen of different religions how they feel about female contraception. What do you know? They all have extremely strong feelings against it! They get to opine and decide, without consulting women, whether women should have access to contraception. This is the height of reason and fairness. There was not one woman in the panel. An Anita Bryant conservative witch would have come in handy, but not even. This is what religion does: it writes a blank check for self-righteousness, downright imbecility and barbarism and people just go ahead and cash it. Then they pat themselves in the back, to boot.
Let me put it this way: I hate religion. I hate what it does to people.
Faith is another matter. You want to believe in an afterlife, heaven and hell, God, limbo, nirvana, by all means; it's your right, knock yourself out. I read Astrology Zone religiously every month. We all need that old black magic somehow.
But why do we all have to believe in God? And if we don't, why are we perceived as morally deficient? Why do men get to decide that women should sit at the back of a bus, or not play sports or drive, or not have a right to decide what to do with their own reproductive systems? Because this is abuse of power and only something as irrational as religion can warrant such a thing.
I would argue that, more often than not, those of us who hold reason in higher esteem than faith are far more ethical than those who shelter their morally revolting attitudes behind the front of religion. Church going and breast beating and following  irrelevant stone age laws, or in the case of fundamentalists, deeply distorted, maniacal interpretations of religion, give people a pass from true piety, true charity, true love and true morality.
It makes no sense to decry the termination of an embryo as against the sanctity of human life, and at the same time cheer every time someone is fried in the electric chair. It makes no sense to believe in a guy who said you should love thy neighbor and then demonize and persecute gays, or people from other religions, subjugate women and keep the poor and the gullible in ignorance and darkness.
When it was invented thousands of years ago, religion was useful as a civilizing tool. In those days it was linked to the seasons and the tides and the movements of the sky. It helped people understand their place on Earth and in the universe. It helped create relatively functional societies. It laid down some necessary laws (like "thou shalt not kill", something it has not heeded itself). It also encouraged artistic expression. Fine. But it becomes dangerous the moment it acquires political or economic power, which is when it starts acting like a bully.
If it is as pure and lofty as it claims to be, why should organized religion concentrate wealth, or dictate policies? It should aid the poor, comfort the needy and be an individual source of solace, not be a stick with which to control and abuse people and cheat them out of their money and their human rights.

Bullies in the Name of God

People think that the Ultraorthodox gangs in Israel have finally gone too far, dressing their children as Holocaust victims, yellow star and everything. Appropriating persecution while being the actual menace. That is rich. It's like Nazis claiming victimhood. Problem is, they have always been too far. This sinister behavior should not surprise anybody. These roving bands of God-empowered hoodlums behave like a cult. Their Judaism is an ugly distorsion, an aberration that has little to do with anything civilizing and wise in our ancient religion. Like the Taliban, they take things literally; like other fanatical fundamentalist cults, they operate by coercion, and bullying. Problem is, in Israel, a state they hate, they are not only tolerated, but kept on welfare. Bullies that they are, they take every opportunity to abuse the system, both practically and psychologically. In any other democracy some of their harassment is considered illegal and punishable by law, but in Israel until now they've always gotten a free pass. And because of that, they keep upping the ante, to levels that no sane place on Earth would tolerate. These are the people who have met with that pustulent vantz, Ahmadinejad, who advocates for the destruction of Israel and denies the Holocaust. Why? Because they believe that Israel cannot exist until the Messiah shows up (don't hold your breath). These are the people who teach children to bully little girls, also ultra religious, because they are not wearing their equivalent of a burka, and who have the nerve to demand that other, not mentally insane women, sit at the back of a bus, among many other offenses to human reason. Now they are "upset" because they feel Israeli society is waging a campaign against them. Really. Israel should cut all welfare to them, as should any other clueless Jews who give them charity. Israel should demand they comply with the laws of the state. At stake is the essence and nature of a modern state, but also the opportunity to expose them for the cult and the fraud they are.

Shoshana Parks

A lot has been made in the US about Tanya Rosenblitt, a young Israeli who refused to sit in the back of a public bus as demanded by some Ultraorthodox men. It is a harpe un a shande, a disgrace, that the bus driver took their side and a police officer tried to placate them by attempting to convince her to comply, instead of reading them the riot act. But she stood her ground.
This is not only about women's rights, this is about the very essence of the State of Israel. Is it going to be a modern democracy with equal rights and civil laws, or a theocracy ruled by maniacs? Rosenblitt has been labeled the Israeli Rosa Parks and her sensible defiance has sparked other secular Israelis to demand a stop to the Orthodox lunacy. I don't know what has taken Israeli secular society (the majority, still) so long to fight the encroachment of insane religious dogma into daily life. The problem with religious fanatics is that they don't listen to reason. So as far as I'm concerned, they need to start listening to the law of the land, and that law has to be secular.
If they want segregated buses, they should own them privately and behave like Stone Age troglodytes all they want on their own buses and their own dime. They cannot expect to behave like that on state buses. They cannot coerce others to behave like them. They cannot continue holding Israeli society hostage with their unreasonable demands. Israel is a modern society which should be governed by secular laws. It's about time that Israel institutes civil marriage and divorce. As long as this doesn't happen, it will be still mired in the Middle Ages, all its modern achievements notwithstanding.
As for those who worry that if Israel secularizes all its laws it will cease being a Jewish state, I guess they prefer Israel to be a Stone Age theocracy rather than a modern democracy with secular laws for all. Let the religious nutcases run rampant and soon there may be no Jewish state either.
Unfortunately, Orthodox Jews do not use family planning, so they may end up calling the shots. But as long as they are not a majority, they need to respect democratic rule. Enough with their special treatment, which is an insult to those Israelis who do pay taxes, serve in the Army and contribute to the progress of the country. Enough with their parasitical abuse of the state and their contempt for their fellow citizens. I'm happy to see Tanya's stance galvanized others into a movement to ensure that Israel is defined as a modern state with equal rights and responsibilities for all its citizens.

On Christmas Day, as we waited to go to a movie in Union Square, everything was closed, but music was coming out of speakers. Turns out young Hassids were celebrating Hannukah. They were dancing to some modern sounding music in Hebrew, in what seemed to me a bit of enforced merriment. Six measly young males pretending to have more fun than what they could possibly be having. I think there was a little cluster of orthodox women standing around watching them. Because God forbid men and women should sing and dance together. This ridiculous, offensive, abusive form of segregation by the Orthodox is called, in a fit of Orwellian euphemism, tzniut; modesty. But this is not about modesty, this is about the control of women. Why do women have to be modest and not men? What does that say about women: that if they don't dress like circus tents they are what? Immodest, whores, the devil? Why do women put up with this contemptuous crap?

Today On I've Had It With Hollywood

My review of Into The Abyss, a Tale of Death, A Tale of Life, by Werner Herzog.

Yet one more movie which should encourage the national debate about the death penalty in the US. We are after all, the only civilized, industrialized nation that has it, to our enduring shame. We are in the company of evil, rogue, and backward regimes. Just to be in that list should make us strike it down.
It is a complicated issue. True, there are certain people one wishes they die a painful death. If someone killed someone I loved, I'm sure I would feel a burning desire for revenge, but that doesn't mean that this is what a civilized democracy in the 21st century needs to do for me. To put them away for life should be punishment enough.
It's hard to fathom how all those ghastly Republicans bitch and moan about big government, but they conveniently forget to factor in that the death penalty is the most humongous, egregious intrusion of government into the lives of citizens. All they want is to shirk their responsibilities to their fellow citizens and not pay taxes, but government is suddenly not big enough when it comes to the death penalty or to telling women what to do with their reproductive health, or to terrorize hardworking illegal immigrants, or put mostly people of color in jail and profit from it.
Hardly anything that their beloved Jesus Christ would have ever approved of.
In fact, Jesus was a victim of the death penalty. It is beyond human reason how they can reconcile his suffering and his teachings, to which the notion of revenge is anathema, to their cheering a candidate under whose watch more people get executed by the state than anywhere in the world, except perhaps for Ghadaffi's Libya, or Syria. This brand of American Christianity can only be described at bat-shit lunatic crazy, and evil. And the sane citizens of this country need to fight it with all their might, if they want to live in a free democracy.

Happy New Year

Sunrise

May this New Year 5772 be a year where people become smarter, common sense reigns, people renounce violence, we edge closer to social justice, war ends, evil bankers are prosecuted, the middle class thrives, poverty shrinks, government works, the rich are taxed, our politicians lose the stupid and craven gene, corporations stop being people, all the nasties in the Supreme Court magically retire while all the liberals stay, drugs are legalized, the mayhem in the Middle East is finally put to rest, hatred calls it a day, Republicans implode, Obama grows a pair, reality shows collapse, global warming chills, people find jobs, capital punishment is barred in the US, street fairs are banned, and I get a date with Michael Fassbender.
Not asking for much, are we? 

Eat a lot of apples and honey just in case. It can't hurt.

Quote of the Week

As quoted in the movie Of Gods and Men:

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it for religious conviction".
Blaise Pascal.

Amen, brother!

Mork from Ork

I finally finished reading Lawrence Wright's meticulous and extraordinarily damaging exposé of the bizarreness that is Scientology and boy, it gets better as you read along. Nothing new under the sun: Scientology is nothing other than a cult (we knew that). It separates people from their money and from their families and from their common sense. It is based on the loony science fiction ideas of a guy that looks like a Tupperware salesman circa 1950. But I think the reason it has been so successful is that, in contrast to other loony cults, which sometimes idolize charismatic con artists or believe in impossible utopias, this one couches its beliefs in the mumbo jumbo of self-help, a topic dear and inexhaustible to the citizens of this nation. Self-help gurus seem to be a quintessentially American travesty, and Scientology just seems better organized and wealthier than most.  In Germany it is banned and recognized as a cult. Here they should do the same. If the FBI finds evidence, as the article claims, of slave labor and financial shenanigans (it has protected tax status as a church), it should be prosecuted and penalized accordingly. What is amazing is that it has been allowed to thrive mostly unimpeded and this must be because of its shiny aura of success and its connection to celebrities, since as you all know being a celebrity in this country pretty much guarantees you can act outside the law. On the surface, Scientology doesn't seem to be utterly bat-shit like the Branch Davidians, or those people who drank the Kool-Aid. But some of their crazier teachings are hidden for a reason; they are wacky and sinister at the same time. A lot of people think that Scientology is a religion like any other, but one of the important differences between a religion and a cult is that in a religion you are not coerced to believe. You are free to profess your faith in your own personal way without punishment or coercion.
In any case, my advice to you dear readers is that you don't become scientologists.  You will be spending too much money to believe in stuff zanier than a sci-fi comic book.

Faith No More

A parable, my little grasshoppers:

So I am walking by myself through the main temple at Angkor Wat, ahead of hosts of tourists who are still clicking away at the last remnants of sunrise over the Wat, and I come across a man, dressed in a gray Mao collar shirt, who stands in front of a little shrine with a statue of a placidly (is there any other way?) sitting Buddha.
The man entreats me to offer incense to the statue. I demur. He says it will give me good luck. No, thank you. He insists, as if implying who could be so stupid and have a soul so black as to deny themselves good luck with such a simple, innocent gesture?
As he will not back down, I relent. I take the wand of incense, follow a little ritual as he tells me, and stick it in the sandy urn in front of Buddha, who remains unfazed.
I feel absolutely nothing. No relief, no joy, no peace, no anger, no impatience, no grace. NOTHING. Have I inadvertently achieved Nirvana? Perhaps.
Once I am done, the man lifts up a little piece of fabric in front of the Buddha and reveals a crisp five dollar bill. That's when I bark.
No, I say. I didn't want to do this for a reason.
I do not rant at him that it is not the money, or the fact that he is clearly a con artist, and that not all of us gullible foreigners are like Liz Gilbert eating and praying and loving our way through exotic locales.
Some of us just like our reality hard assed. We take the world as it is and deal with it.
And what does spirituality have to do with money anyway?

I do not care if your God does yoga and never breaks a sweat, if He is sitting in a throne in the sky having tantrums mostly with Himself, if He has managed to piss off the authorities enough to get nailed to a cross, or doesn't find Scandinavian cartoons funny. I have no faith, and yet my life is rich and very meaningful.
Please leave me alone.

On this trip I visited many beautiful temples.
The only place where I felt an intense urge to kneel down, bow my head, shed bitter tears and offer some sort of prayer, was at the Killing Fields in Cambodia. I felt the need to acknowledge to the bones of 17,000 men, women and children, that I was ashamed and despairing of their suffering and that they were not forgotten.

On Bullying

When I was growing up, you got bullied if you were:
Too fat
Too skinny
Too smart
Too stupid
Too poor
Too rich
Too good
Too mean
Too dirty
Too clean
Too clumsy
Too tall
Too short
Too religious
Not religious enough
Too white
Brown
A different color
Ugly
A nerd
Bad at sports
Great at math
Wearing glasses
Having freckles
Kinky hair
Greasy hair
Big boobs
No boobs
A big schlong
A tiny schlong
A tomboy
A fag
A slut
A "nun"

Different.

Bullying is evil and should be eradicated whoever the victim, for whatever the reason.

Now, educators in certain mostly suburban school boards across the country recently decided to expand their guidelines against bullying in schools by including bullying against gay kids or gay parents, as it should be. And now some religious people are complaining that those guidelines are fostering a "hidden homosexual agenda".
I think the problem is in the approach, which invokes the teaching of tolerance to kids. To tolerate is to suffer someone else. We need to be more than tolerant. We need to respect others. Tolerance leaves the door open for plenty of dissent and interpretation. However, if we leave the touchy feely idea of tolerance aside and we use more emphatic terms, there is no argument.  Instead of telling children they need to be more tolerant of everyone around them, somebody should lay down the law:
You are not to pester, harass, harm, offend, threaten or hurt anybody physically or verbally, on the basis that they look, think, behave, believe, speak, dress, act, and love differently than you do.
(Because if you do, The Grande Enchilada is gonna personally show up and rip you to shreds, understood?)
After we lay down the law, we can certainly teach children to respect each others' differences and kumbaya, etc, etc.
Bullying because of sexual orientation needs to be included in every anti-bullying curriculum in every school in the universe, let alone the country. However, as long as we don't have federal laws in this country that protect people from discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation, how can we expect society at large to follow suit? Our lawmakers are way behind the times in terms of the reality American citizens live in on a daily basis, in absolutely every aspect of their lives, at home, at school, in the workplace, at the doctor's office, in the hospital, in the army, everywhere.
As long as gay people don't have fully equal rights under the law, we are going to witness crazy, unproductive arguments like this until the end of time.

Read Your Bible

                                                 Read, you putzes!

Thanks to my friend Cathy (and Facebook, lately almost my only source of news) I was alerted to this (from NPR):

The Pew Forum on Religious Religion and Public Life released a survey on religious knowledge today. Atheists and Agnostics scored higher on it than anyone else, closely followed by Jews and Mormons, all Christians, Protestants and Catholics, were far behind.

That's overall, but when you get into specific religions it does show a startling lack of basic knowledge by practitioners. From the report:

More than four-in-ten Catholics in the United States (45%) do not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion do not merely symbolize but actually become the body and blood of Christ. About half of Protestants (53%) cannot correctly identify Martin Luther as the person whose writings and actions inspired the Protestant Reformation, which made their religion a separate branch of Christianity. Roughly four-in-ten Jews (43%) do not recognize that Maimonides, one of the most venerated rabbis in history, was Jewish.

The study also showed that Americans have a fairly poor understanding of religions other than their own. Only about half of the people surveyed know that Martin Luther inspired the Reformation, the Dalai Lama is Buddhist, and Joseph Smith was a Mormon.

Atheists and Agnostics scored higher on it than anyone else, closely followed by Jews and Mormons.  Well, excuse me, but I really resent this classification. I am an Atheist Jew, so that must mean I am Bible Expert Number One.
Number two, I think this is more a reflection of how stoopid and ignorant Americans are, rather than agnostics and atheists being geniuses at religion.
I took the quiz. It is so basic, it's appalling. I'm proud to report that I missed just one of the 15 answers and I think it was a trick question.
This useful bit of info is certainly welcome these days, but it is hardly surprising. Agnostics and atheists may not only know more about religion, we actually comport ourselves according to most of the better values of said beliefs, rather than pay hypocritical lip service, in the best of cases, or in the worst, use our special relationship with God to be thoroughly disgusting and abusive human beings (The Pope, The Taliban, all fundamentalists, the ultra-orthodox in Israel, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, televangelists, etc).

Why are Atheists and Agnostics better informed? The Los Angeles Times quotes one of the researchers who has a theory:

American atheists and agnostics tend to be people who grew up in a religious tradition and consciously gave it up, often after a great deal of reflection and study, said Alan Cooperman, associate director for research at the Pew Forum.

"These are people who thought a lot about religion," he said. "They're not indifferent. They care about it."

Also interesting is that Black Protestants and Latino Catholics scored at the bottom of the survey.

I have another theory: people don't read. The less people read, the more on the bottom of the survey they will be. Agnostics and atheists read. I bet that the numbers would support me if anyone took the trouble to statistically confirm this.
Agnostics and atheists are by nature doubters, and doubters tend to be better informed about the choices out there. They don't believe everything they read. But that's because they read.
If you want to know about religion, you have to read the goddamned books. Or at least leaf through them once in a while. Or read other books about them. Otherwise, it's all hearsay, mostly devalued and distorted.
I know about Judaism because it was taught to me at home and at school, more culturally than religiously. I know about Christianity, Catholicism and Protestantism thanks to Henry VIII. I studied English literature and I'll be damned if we weren't taught every Catholic sacrament and every article of faith and that Luther nailed some paper to a Church door, in order that we could better grasp stuff like The Faerie Queene. (I fondly remember the Anabaptists, who greatly impressed me in my college days by running around naked preaching the end of the world).
The little I know about Eastern religions comes from reading The Tao of Physics, watching Kung-Fu and going to yoga and tai chi classes.
About Islam I know even less, but thanks to recent history, I know the minimum.
I'm sick and tired of lazy people who don't read. Ignorant, benighted, idiot people of all races, religions, nationalities, genders and stations in life. I particularly detest those who throw the Bible and religion around as if they had some sort of divine dispensation to feel morally superior, only because they beat their chest regularly in public. Read a freaking book so at least you know what the fuck you are talking about (I'm talking to you, Palin, and the rest of you bunch of smug intellect haters).

I'm Not Making This Up

From the catalogue of a spiritual retreat in upstate NY which shall remain nameless:
• Wild Roots, Woodslore and Wildwoods Wisdom -- WHERE'S THE BAR?
• TangoZen™: Tango with the Buddha -- ISN'T THE BUDDHA TOO FAT TO TANGO? 
• Dance of Liberation®
• Boot Camp for Goddesses® -- EUPHEMISM FOR FAT FARM?
• Overcoming Underearning® -- BY OVERPAYING THE UNDERMINER.
• Naam Yoga™ and Universal Kabbalah -- DO WE GET TO COMMUNE WITH ESTHER?
• Detox Flow® Yoga
• Yoga Tune Up®
• Purna Yoga™ 
• Satyananda Yoga®
• Embodyoga™
• Anusara Yoga®
• Jivamukti Yoga® -- IN WHICH WE MEDITATE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ® AND ™
• Breema™ -- WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS?
• Tai Chi Easy™
• ChiWalking®
• ChiRunning®
• VortexHealing®  -- VOID WHERE PROHIBITED
• The Power of Personal Vibrations -- BUMMER. I THOUGHT IT SAID PERSONAL VIBRATORS
• Mindfulness Tools for Living the Full Catastrophe -- I BET THIS ONE IS FOR JEWS.
• Awakening your Authentic Soul Signature -- IS IT LIKE MY VISA SIGNATURE?
• The Art of Extreme Self-Care -- NARCISSISTS WELCOME
• Spring Ecstatic Chant -- ME AFTER SOUP DUMPLINGS AT JOE'S SHANGHAI
• A Gentle Introduction to Skydancing Tantra -- WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR ROOT BEER
• Tree Whispering™ -- WILL I BE SUED IF I DO IT ON MY OWN?
• Social Media Training -- HUH?
• FireWalking: Feel your Fear, Find your Power -- EASY FOR YOU TO SAY
• John of God -- TOO BAD CRUCIFIXION WENT OUT OF STYLE
• How to Write and Publish Spiritual Books -- AND MAKE MILLIONS DOING IT?
• Our Lady of Weight Loss EnLIGHTens -- AMEN, SISTERS
• Creating Photo Prayers -- GIVE ME A FREAKING BREAK
• Off the Mat, into the World® -- AND STILL AN ASSHOLE AT THE END OF THE CLASS
• Self-Healing through Latin Dance -- NO MAMEN 

AND MY OVERWHELMING FAVORITE: Corporate Yogis Unite!

Atheism vs Theocracy: Round 1.

I was shocked to find so many more religious Jews in Jerusalem, and in Israel in general than when I left almost 30 years ago. Oodles of orthodox and ultra-orthodox, which are not very tolerant people.
But I have news for them. I am not tolerant of them either. I could give a shit about their delusional holiness. And I'm tired of secular Jews giving them the widest berth. They don't deserve it. And this unrequited respect secular Jews have for these people is going to come back and bite us in the ass very soon, if not already.
We went to the ultra-orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, a place in the new city where there are no holy places, just people who deem themselves holier than thou. They have massive signs on the street that say that "groups severely offend" the inhabitants of the neighborhood. Groups of what, I don't know. Humans who choose to live in the 21st century? People who dislike long sleeves and skirts in 100 degree heat?  So I was wearing short sleeves and long pants. However, the Magnificent Arepa, tired of covering up at 105 degree heat in Aqaba so as not to incur the morbid stares of Arab men, was wearing a short skirt and a t-shirt. In any case, there we go walking down Mea Shearim street, nobody saying anything. Ultra Orthodox men are forbidden to look or speak at a woman that is not covered. Most ignored us, probably used to the fact that they live in a town with lots of tourists. As we went deeper into the neighborhood, a religious woman who looked old, as they all do, suddenly announces to us that it is forbidden to walk around on the street like that. I could have easily said, okay, we'll leave, but it offended me she used the word "forbidden". Because that is not the case. It may offend her, but there is no law that states that one cannot walk on the streets of Jerusalem wearing whatever one wants. So I said in my best smartass Hebrew, "it's not forbidden, why is it forbidden?" She said that it was written in many languages that it is offensive to the people of the neighborhood. I would have left it at that, had not appeared in the horizon a secular Jewish woman, with a professorial air, wearing pants and guiding a group of tourists whose women had obviously been asked to cover up their arms and legs. This woman started butting in at no one's request saying that we were disrespecting "us". "Who is us? I'm a Jew, a secular Jew", I said, "and I can wear whatever I want because this is a free country". "No, it isn't", she informs me. A screaming match ensued in English and Hebrew, and one of her charges, a meek looking tourist, decided to chime in: "I'm not Jewish and I'm wearing a long skirt", she said. So therefore she has gained a place in Heaven? This makes me a bad Jew? WTF? I bellowed at her, "I don't care what you are. There are also secular Jews in this country and we can walk down the street however we like. Don't look at her legs, if you find them so offensive", I said to the guide. She was about to have a conniption. She threw us out of "my neighborhood" and said something about the Palestinians which was so out of context and so utterly incoherent that all I could say was "give me a fucking break".
I was not about to retreat, so we burrowed deeper into that God-forsaken, medieval hellhole. I'm waiting for the day when God appears to these people. First thing It's going to say is, "Who told you to be so utterly benighted? So contemptuous of and disrespectful to women? So ignorant and stupid? Certainly, it wasn't Me".
But now I felt really uncomfortable and claustrophobic. I feared a retaliatory mob, despite the fact that nobody else batted an eye. We finally found a way to get out of there. Again, the super-orthodox did not say a word to us, but this four letter word that starts with a c, decided to become, as we say in Spanish, more Popist than the Pope, because who knows what crap she must have been saying to those poor tourists, stuck in a one horse town full of lunatic zealots that don't respect anybody but themselves but expect us modern citizens of the world to worship at the altar of their selfrighteouness.
They can kiss my Jewish ass.

Come with me to the Casbah

The Souk in Jerusalem's Old City.

 

                                                         Incenses.

Thank God for the profane.

Easter Parade

               Great idea for an Easter bonnet. Mexicans Represent!

I'm no Bill Cunningham, but considering these were taken with the iPhone camera, not too shabby.

Tourist: "This is the greatest city in the world!"  You said it, sister.

They were also in attendance.