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The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

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Archives for June 2005

Blogging for Ego, For Experience, For What

June 30, 2005 by Jack Steiner 6 Comments

One of the things that I love about the blogosphere is that I am a part of community.

Community, not one, but many.

I rise up into the ether and find myself a part of a community of bloggers, of those who share my faith, interests, goals, objectives and so much more.

It is a place that I find fascinating. I frequently speak about how I love the interaction and sometimes the voeyeuristic component of this. I peak into lives and see people who I think are just like and I watch others who are so very different.

I learn about them and myself and I really believe that I am growing, at least that is the hope. I know for certain that this has been a positive experience for me if for no other reason than the outlet it provides as well as the chance to work on my writing. I need the practice.

And I know that the outlet provides me with a certain freedom to say things I might not say and to admit things that I might not otherwise. So here is my confession of the moment.

I check my stats way too frequently. I look at Technorati to see if people have decided that I am a necessary part of their daily diet, have they blogrolled me or have they unblogrolled me. I am interested, but in truth I am more touched when someone writes a post because of something they said, wrote, saw or experienced here.

I am sometimes frustrated when there are no comments, especially on posts where I really feel like I have hit a homerun.

So the reality and the truth is that there is some ego involved here, a bit of a come love me component, but I accept that. Is it wrong to admit this, should I be ashamed that I would like for people to look to my blog for this and that.

I don’t think so. I feel a little foolish admitting it, but as I said, this is the place where I let those things out, where the dark corners get to see a little light.

I am still a dreamer, a person who lives in the stars. I am not just a father, not just a mealticket or provider.

I am still that boy who dreams of playing a professional sport, who wanted to be part of some amazing story like a Harry Potter or LOTR book.

Blogging really has done a lot for me, I am truly thankful. And if the time comes when I decide I need to hangup my spikes I likely will not announce it. I will probably avoid making a big deal of it because I don’t want a bunch of people begging me to stay and if they do not I will be pissed off and mildly hurt.

Silly ego.

Better to walk away and leave a little mystery to where I have gone and if I will return.

Filed Under: Blogging

A Sad Story

June 30, 2005 by Jack Steiner 8 Comments


I saw this initially on Jewzoo and it really made me a little sad.

There is a story that goes alongside the picture and explains why this woman allowed her forehead to be purchased for ad space.

“Smith’s ad is a labor of love and actually a positive in her life, something she says her life hasn’t been filled with lately: a failed marriage and deaths of several family members — most recently, her sister in a car crash April 18.
Smith said the money will give her son the education boost she believes he needs after falling behind in school since the accident.
“For the all the sacrifices everyone makes, this is a very small one,” she said. “It’s a small sacrifice to build a better future for my son.”
Still, Smith said she knows most people won’t understand why she’s sold her forehead as advertising space.
“I really want to do this,” she said. “To everyone else, it seems like a stupid thing to do. To me, $10,000 is like $1 million. I only live once, and I’m doing it for my son.”
Brouse didn’t understand it, either.
In his 24 years, he’s turned away a lot of customers who want to get tattoos that can’t be covered up with clothing. He and his staff spent nearly seven hours Wednesday trying to talk Smith out of it.

Her resolve won out. The one thing Brouse could do with inch-tall letters in the prominent spot was to make them less so by keeping them as close to her hairline for those occasions when bangs or a hat might be the more appropriate message.
Smith’s boyfriend, Jeremy Williams, said the couple discussed the idea for more than three weeks before deciding to go through with it. And when they did, Smith’s eBay auction attracted more than 27,000 hits and 1,000 watchers.
Bidding reached $999.99 before Goldenpalace.com, an Internet gambling company in the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake, Canada, clicked “buy now,” meeting Smith’s $10,000 asking price and ending the auction two days early.
Smith said she talked to several companies and received multiple offers, but she decided Goldenpalace.com would be the best choice.
“We decided to go with these guys because they work with a lot of charities,” she said. “I want this to mean something.”

I think that there is just something sad about a woman who feels like this is necessary. As a parent I can understand the drive to try and provide for your children. I really hope that this makes a difference because she sold that space for very little and it will take some time to see if there is a price that she will have to pay for having done so.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Some Stories that Caught My Eye

June 30, 2005 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

These are just a few of the things that have caught my attention today:

“Newborn dolphins, killer whales never sleep -study

A study has shown the young of those two species do not sleep at all during the first month of life. They are active 24 hours a day — and their mothers have learned to cope.

“Somehow these seafaring mammals have found a way to cope with sleep deprivation, facilitating rather than hindering a crucial phase of development for their offspring,” Dr Jerome Siegel, a neuroscientist at the University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA), said in a statement.

Siegel and his colleagues said the developmental pattern they discovered in the dolphins and whales is different from all other mammals.

As the calves of both species grow, their sleep gradually increases to adult levels.

“Their bodies have found a way to cope, offering evidence that sleep isn’t necessary for development and raising the question of whether humans and other mammals have untapped physiological potential for coping without sleep,” Siegel said.”

And

In Ireland, few safe havens for an ancient tongue

“Irish Gaelic is still the native tongue of some 55,000 people who live mostly along the west coast. But it is under siege. Even Inis Meáin, one of three Aran Islands off the coast of County Galway famed for old-fashioned ways, is no longer a safe haven.

“Irish is in trouble,” says Cuomhán Ó Fátharta, Inis Meáin’s sole shopkeeper. “When I was young, you had to learn English in school because there was no TV. I couldn’t really speak English until I was 12, but now the kids are all picking it up young.”

As Ireland’s mother tongue struggles to survive, the government has stepped up its contentious efforts to save the language, known here simply as Irish.”

What about this one:

We’re going to eat out of a WHAT?

“TAIPEI (Reuters) – It may take a strong stomach to eat curry or chocolate ice cream out of a toilet bowl, but a commode-themed restaurant in Taiwan does booming business serving up just that.

The Martun, or toilet in Chinese, restaurant in the southern port city of Kaohsiung boasts lengthy queues on weekends as diners wait for a toilet seat in its brightly colored tile interior.

Food arrives in bowls shaped like Western-style toilets or Asian-style “squat pots.”

Manager Hung Lin-wen said the original inspiration came from a toilet-shaped spaceship in a Japanese cartoon. The theme has attracted droves of novelty-seeking young people who come to play with their food and gross out their friends.”

It is a wild and wacky world that we live in.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

A Mental Lapse

June 30, 2005 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Went to the gym last night to play ball. I found two partners and we ran the court for a couple of hours. Basketball can be a very simple game to play, especially if you do what I did and find teammates who are exceptionally good. It makes the game very easy. I like simplicity.

Last week I jammed the index finger on my right hand and then last night I added to my laundry list of aches and pains by jamming my middle finger. The upside is that it takes a large finger and makes it obscenely large so that there is no misunderstanding what I try to say to passing motorists.

The index finger healed relatively quickly. I was surprised, pleasantly I might add because these things tend to be nagging injuries.

Spent some time in the steamroom to unwind and exchanged war stories with the boys. Again I am convinced that the thing that scares me the most about being a father is not the usual mix of pedophiles, thieves and rapists, but one thing, ME.

When I think about the stupid things I did and how much dumb luck I had I cringe. When I think about being a teenage boy and how we looked at girls I think that I might have to lock my daughter up or hire professional bodyguards because her brother won’t work.

He’ll be caring and loving and at times very effective- and then a pair of pretty eyes will catch his attention and he’ll be too busy staring at her body and thinking of my admonishment to remember that she is a person and that someone might look at his sister that way- to remember to keep the guy chatting her up away.

And with this I realize now how to spare myself the trouble of paying for the house. I’ll have to sell it to have enough money to pay for the security force, school, clothing and all of the other stuff that comes with children.

Years from now you may see me on the street, I’ll be the homeless guy wearing a beat up tank top and some tired hightops. For a quarter I’ll spin a yarn or two for you, but if you want to hear the whole story it will cost you at least a dollar.

Maybe the best thing I can do is listen to the advice of one of the other players and just suffer a mental lapse about my earlier days and go from there.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Laugh, It is a Gas

June 30, 2005 by Jack Steiner 4 Comments

Thanks to Blogger’s new capabilities pictures will be added to this blog more frequently.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Refusal, Disengagement, Civil War, Uprising, The Shame

June 29, 2005 by Jack Steiner 2 Comments

I have written about my love affair with Israel on many occasions. I have fielded comments and questions about why I still live in America, whether I would still consider making aliyah and have sparred with people who accuse me of having mixed loyalties, who question my patriotism to the U.S.

I don’t feel much like discussing the ‘ins and outs’ or the ‘hows and whys’ of why I do what I do. I don’t really care that much because in the grand scheme of things it is immaterial. For now I live in the US and am committed to living here and doing what I can to make the US a better place, but none of that precludes my being interested in doing the same for Israel. Nor does it prevent me from having an opinion on the disengagement.

There are those who would say that because I do not live in Israel I am entitled or allowed to have an opinion on disengagement, but I disagree for a couple of basic reasons.

  1. What happens in Israel has an impact upon Jews worldwide.
  2. As a Jew it is my right to have an opinion, ask your rav or look at the certificate you received at your bris.

In all seriousness, I get to voice my opinion but I don’t get to vote because I live in the galut and that is as it should be. But enough of this, enough of the ridiculous banter and the small talk and into the meat.

I am torn and upset by this. I am angry and frustrated by the pictures I see of the infighting, of Jews fighting Jews and the idea that land is being given to people who have been trying to murder us. I don’t like it, it is a painful thing to see.

But I tend to believe that it is necessary and I am very concerned with the actions of those who are resisting the move, especially within the IDF. A nation should have soldiers who act and think on their own, but at the same time they must follow the chain of command or the entire system breaks down. I thought that this and other thoughts was summed up well in the following editorial from the Jerusalem Post.

“The father of Avi Bieber, a soldier who refused orders during the demolition of some abandoned buildings in Gush Katif on Sunday, spoke of being “proud that he was able to stand up and say what he feels.” Without detracting from a father’s natural role in backing up his son, refusing orders for political reasons should not evoke pride, but concern over the shallowness of our democratic roots.

Political refusal is nothing to be proud of, and both sides know it. Disengagement opponents who are now blithely urging refusal were the first to be appalled at leftwing calls to refuse to serve in the territories. One such call currently online, for example, organized by “Courage to Refuse,” states, “We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people. We hereby declare that we shall continue serving in the Israel Defense Forces in any mission that serves Israel’s defense. The missions of occupation and oppression do not serve this purpose – and we shall take no part in them.”

Who gave this organization and the soldiers who have heeded it the right to decide which missions serve Israel’s defense? It does not take “courage” to refuse, but arrogance. It is a selfish act in which the refuser decides not only to arrogate to himself the roles of elected leaders, but to transfer the burdens he refuses to share to his law abiding compatriots.

Those who are proud of Bieber would have only disdain for his counterparts on the Left, and no doubt the feeling is mutual. But neither side can have it both ways: refusal begets refusal. We have one prime minister, one Knesset, one army and one people. The refuser, more than advancing his own cause, is undermining the institutions on which we all depend for our lives, our security, and our existence.

This is not to deny the legitimate category of refusing to obey illegal orders. Soldiers are taught, and rightly so, that they have the right and sometimes the duty to refuse to obey illegal orders. A soldier’s judgment of what is illegal may or may not be upheld against that of his commander, but there is no doctrine that every order is by definition legal.

On the civilian side, there is also the institution of civil disobedience, which can go so far as breaking the law. But there is a difference between dissent in the military and civilian cases. In both, the dissenter must be willing to bear the legal consequences of his actions. But only in the civilian case is dissent legitimate on political grounds.

Civilian dissent does not undermine the institution of democracy, though it can to some extent challenge the legitimacy of its elected institutions. Refusal in a military context directly undermines the bedrock principle that is necessarily drummed into every soldier: that legal orders derived from democratic decisions must be followed. Without this foundation, the army that both the Left and Right agree is critical to this nation, and therefore democracy itself, cannot function.

The question is how we can better inculcate in our youth a revulsion of political refusal, rather than the notion that it is a noble act. Some refusers, either because anarchy does not concern them, or because they place other sources of authority, such as religion, above democracy, know what they are doing. Others may fully understand the gravity of their attack on their own democracy and society.

Whether refusal comes from ideology or ignorance, our society must defend itself not only by punishing the perpetrators, but by maintaining the stigma against political refusal and bolstering democratic values through civic education. Defenders of democracy need as much courage, tenacity and creativity as those whose, deliberately or through ignorance, would undermine what we must all hold most dear.”

I have also shared the words of Rabbi Daniel Gordis on a number of occasions and I would like to do so again with two pieces.

First, this is a link to an article he wrote for the Jerusalem Post.

“Hamefaked, anahnu yehudim, ve’et ze ani lo mesugal, read one that’s appeared all over. “Commander, we’re all Jews, and this I cannot do.” It is a call to soldiers, encouraging them to declare that even if ordered, they will not force Jews from their homes.

The phrasing was brilliant, I thought. Not “I won’t do this,” but “I can’t do this.”

It evoked, in almost wordless fashion, the bewilderment of those in Gaza who will be moved. It suggested that the Knesset’s decision is not simply wrong, but that it verges on a violation of nature.

This simply cannot be done. It is an assault on too much of what we stand for, an assault on fairness, on decency. Even those of us who (however unhappily) favor the disengagement can, and must, understand this sense of betrayal.

Because these Israeli citizens were encouraged by Labor no less than by the Likud to build homes in Gush Katif, and they did so with exemplary dedication. Because, our protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, we are withdrawing under fire.

Because Ariel Sharon effectively promised these people that this would not happen, and they supported him with that assurance in mind. Because homes will be destroyed, communities dismantled, playgrounds abandoned, synagogues emptied, batei midrash razed.

Because those who left Yamit could at least console themselves with the knowledge that it was land for peace; while this week we could not point to anything that we were getting in return for our evacuation.

Because there are cemeteries there, where these citizens have buried their parents and their children.

And what should happen to those graves? Shall we disinter the children killed and buried there, and force those people to relive once again the torment of those funerals? Or shall we leave the graves there, even as the Palestinians move in, pretending that we don’t recall the desecrations of Joseph’s Tomb in 2000, or of the Mount of Olives before the Six Day War?

Sadly, we hear little validation of the settlers’ angst from those who favor the withdrawal. Where is the grieving on the Left for a human tragedy of enormous proportions? Have we become so embittered that we feel nothing for those whom we must dislodge?

Is that what statehood has wrought? Yotzim me’aza, mathilim ledaber, proclaimed the other side. “Leave Gaza, and start speaking,” as if there were anyone with whom to speak.”

And I leave you with this excerpt from his most recent dispatch:

“Which was the end of the answer to Micha’s question. What will be left when we give it all back? A Pesach like this one, and you know the answer. What will be left will be a country where “Exodus” isn’t only a reference to the ancient past. And what will be left, undoubtedly, will be a smaller country.

What will be left it a country deeply wounded by the pain it is about to inflict on itself, by the price it is asking its best pioneers to pay for having heeded the call of previous governments to move to precisely where they now live. But what will be left is a population that is still in love with the land that it does have, and that hikes it and bikes it at every opportunity. That fills the roads to overflowing on vacations, that fills the wadis way beyond safe numbers. A place where the sense of shared enterprise is palpable, especially when you need it. What will be left are people who, if someone gets hurt, respond so selflessly that it takes your breath away. And then don’t understand why you’re making such a big deal of thanking them.

What will be left will be a country in which, if you go to a couple of doctors in the space of a few hours, one will have made aliyah from France, one from Spain and one from Russia. Where even the food cart in the waiting room reflects the fact that it’s Pesach. It will be a country in which, despite all the years of conflict, kids still reach
out to each other, across the chasms of cultures, and of languages.

But, most importantly, what will be left will be a place that people have left everything behind to come back to. It will be a country where, after this summer, people will have proven that despite the enormous and almost unspeakable pain entailed, they have decided to have less even in the short run, rather than nothing in the long run. Because they will still love what they’ll have. Because they can’t imagine surviving without it.

What will be left, when the pain begins to subside, will be home.”
From Exodus(es), Redux

Here is my wish for hope and that this works out for a better future and peace for all.

Filed Under: Israel

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