Adam Dickter.com

Lately, His 'Happy Days' Are On the River

2012-01-30T13:07:00.000-08:00

A talk with Henry Winkler about overcoming challenges, his new memoir (about fly-fishing?) and life after The Fonz.

He tried out stage names such as Chester Flame and Peter Avalanche at Yale Drama School, but when he got the chance to star in TV and movies, Henry Winkler stuck with the one his German refugee parents gave him.

“I am who I am,” says the pop-culture icon, who became one of the first Jewish superstars on network TV as the streetwise but sensitive 1950s biker Arthur Fonzarelli on ABC’s “Happy Days”; the show ran 1974-‘84. He still acts on stage, TV and the big screen, but is also the co-author of 19 children’s books and author of a recent memoir — not bad for a kid who struggled with poor grades and low self-esteem as a result of undiagnosed dyslexia.

A Manhattan native, Winkler, 66, has three adult children with his wife of 33 years, Stacy, and will co-star in the upcoming comedy “Here Comes The Boom” with Kevin James and Salma Hayek. He also regularly appears on the Adult Swim comedy “Children’s Hospital” and has a recurring role on USA’s “Royal Pains.”

His memoir, “I’ve Never Met an Idiot on the River” (Insight Editions) is about overcoming challenges, his passion for fly-fishing and the personal growth and sense of accomplishment he gained from the sport after being coaxed into it by his lawyer. "My increased self-confidence has helped me to be a better actor, a better husband, a better dad and a better person," he writes. The book is also a showcase of his outdoor photography. The Jewish Week recently caught up with Winkler by phone.

The Jewish Week: One of the first rules of publishing is: Give people what they want. You must have some amazing stories about your career and life behind the scenes at “Happy Days.” Why a book about fly-fishing?

Henry Winkler: My son asked me a few years ago, would I ever write an autobiography? This book is not just about inner peace, but about everything I have learned from fly-fishing over years that can apply to life. There are stories about the will to just take a chance, and I think that is very connected, for me, to fly fishing for trout.

Will you someday write that autobiography?

That’s a good question. I didn’t know I was going to write one book, let alone 19 novels, in my whole life. I always thought I was stupid and couldn’t write a book.

Do you enjoy writing?

I do. What I enjoy is going to the office with my writing partner Lynn Oliver and I think: Goodness, what are we going to write today, I don’t have the slightest idea, and by the time I leave I have six pages in my hand that never existed before. Every time it is a triumph and it’s shocking to me.

You had arguably the greatest role on television for 10 years. After it was over, it must have felt like leaving the presidency. How does what you do afterwards compare?

Everything compares differently, because it is oranges and apples. But it is true that when we finished doing the show, I sat in my office, I put my feet up on the desk and I literally had no idea what to do next. I was typecast. So a lot of roles weren’t coming.

Did you feel pressured to break out and do something completely different?

No, I felt a pressure to actually come up with something I wanted to do, to beat the fear that I had no idea [about what to do next]. I was just like a ship with no wind in its sails at the time. And finally, slowly but surely, the rest of my life started to take shape.

It seems like the character you played was almost the complete opposite of Henry Winkler. Does that make it easier to play?

It is easier to step outside of yourself completely. For me it is, absolutely.

Is there any similarity between you and Fonzie?

Of course there is a similarity between the actor and the part they’re playing. It is our job to find the similarities, because what we really do as actors is not be a star — what you do is illuminate life.

When you auditioned for the part did you have an idea that it was going to grow into a sensation?

No. I had six lines. And then it grew.

Did you ever get a sense the character was over the top? You have become associated with the phrase “jump the shark.”

That was somebody’s opinion. I met that gentleman [Jon Hein] and did his radio show. We went on to be a hit for the next five seasons [after the shark episode]. It didn’t matter to me.

Adam Sandler mentions you in his Chanukah song. Why do you think it is that, as he says, so many Jews are in show biz? What is it about the Jewish experience?

I have always respected that you can take anything away from a human being, but you can’t take their imagination and their intellect. They travel with you wherever you go in the world. I think perhaps the oppression for all those thousands of years — if you don’t laugh, you don’t survive. I think it became a survival technique and an opportunity, a great one, because humor heals a lot of wounds. There is that whole theory that laughing makes you better.

What has being Jewish meant to you over the years in your career and in your life?

I’m proud of the history; I’m proud of the tradition. I love the music. I love that everyone can choose their own way within the confines of the religion to believe. I love the logic and I love the humor.

Did you find that growing up with dyslexia made you work harder to become an actor?

I sometimes wonder — I’m not sure that I would have had the most wonderful life if I was not challenged. My parents did not want me to be an actor; they didn’t want me to be who I wanted to be. But I got a lot a lot from their being survivors. It gave me a sense of that determination.

(Published by The Jewish Week Jan. 8 2012)

Mideast Cyberwar Has Deadly Potential

2012-01-18T11:52:00.000-08:00

Published by CIO Today on 1/16/2012

A tit-for-tat cyberwar between Israelis and Arabs, a new twist on an age-old conflict, has so far involved nuisance credit-card hacks and denial-of-service attacks on Web sites, but could easily take a deadly turn if it escalates.

That's the warning of a top technology consultant after the anti-Israel hackers kicked it up a notch, taking on the national airline, a major bank and the Tel Aviv stock exchange in their bid to cause havoc in the Jewish state.

The denial-of-service attacks hit the stock exchange, El Al Israel Airlines, and the First International Bank of Israel, as well as two subsidiaries, Massad and Otzar Hahayal on Monday, MSNBC reported.

Vehicular Mayhem

"As things become more connected, cars and planes could be hacked as well [as computers], resulting in potential damage that could make 9/11 look trivial by comparison," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. "Think of a large number of connected cars with active accident avoidance suddenly turning right and stopping on a freeway, for instance.

"I expect these activities will increasingly become deadly as systems become more connected and the attacking groups move more sharply toward creating terror."

Monday's DoS attack comes on the heels of the Jan. 3 dumping of thousands of credit card numbers of Israeli citizens on a popular sports site. Saudi Arabian hackers, known as Group XP, believed to be tied to the international hacker group Anonymous, took responsibility for that attack and warned of more.

Shortly after that, a hacker who uses the nom de guerre oxOmar, believed to be a 19-year-old Saudi, posted credit card data of 6,000 thousand Israelis online.

The hacks were an embarrassment for a country known for its technological prowess -- as well as its penchant for revenge. But the retaliation seemed to come from a non-government source. A group of Israeli hackers told the daily newspaper Yediot Acharanot, "If the leaks continue, we will cause severe damage to the privacy of Saudi citizens."

Then, an Israeli 17-year-old, identified as a member of the Israeli army intelligence but acting independently, told Israeli media that he released thousands of Saudi credit card numbers. He called himself OXOmer, a twist on the name of his nemesis, and said he was part of a group of hackers called Israel Defenders.

The government, at least publicly, is keeping out of it, with Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon saying in a statement published by Reuters that, "Just as the Israeli government has found answers for terrorism, we will find answers to this challenge...we call on Israeli citizens not to...act as vigilantes."

Enderle said the back and forth would likely fuel a push for "draconian laws" to stop hacking.

"Israel is already moving to make these [hackings qualify as] terrorist acts and that will raise dramatically both enforcement and punishment for them," he said. "Those of us in the security community have been warning for some time that this was a likely outcome, but methods to protect against it apparently weren't getting enough attention to get the critical funding. That appears to be changing very rapidly and this new battlefield is likely to become much harder fought in the near term future as a result. "

Last week, Ayalon said, "Israel has active capabilities for striking at those who are trying to harm it, and no agency or hacker will be immune from retaliatory action."

In May 2010, the United States established its Cyber Command, a division of Strategic Command, to "ensure U.S./Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries."

Wave Of Swastikas, With Question Marks

2012-01-18T11:45:00.000-08:00

Published by The Jewish Week 1-20/12

The reports of swastika incidents and other crimes lately seem to appear so fast that it’s hard to keep track of them. But in some cases, the episodes may have an awkward, if not bizarre, explanation.

Police on Monday arrested a Jewish man from Manhattan for making anti-Semitic phone calls to his mother and other women, and he is also suspected of painting anti-Semitic graffiti.

David Haddad, 56, was arrested Sunday for making anti-Semitic phone calls including a Dec. 11 call to his mother in which he said “All Jews should die and go to hell.” He was also charged with painting swastikas on the doors of some apartments at the Penn South apartment complex in Chelsea. Because of that crime, authorities are reportedly investigating whether he is connected to another graffiti attack in Midwood over the weekend.

Haddad reportedly knew nearly all of the victims, some of whom were his relatives, according to the New York Times. He reportedly was in a business dispute with his family, which may be the reason for the attacks.

A spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said Haddad would be charged with two counts of aggravated harassment as a hate crime and two more counts of aggravated harassment in the second degree and that other charges may be added. Hynes is prosecuting the case because some of the call recipients live in Brooklyn.

Marc Stern, legal expert for the American Jewish Committee, said that while he did not know of other cases of a Jew being charged with bias against Jews since New York passed its hate crimes law in 2000, there was no reason why it couldn’t happen.

“As an evidentiary matter it may be hard to prove, but there is no impediment,” said Stern. “It’s certainly not what the legislators had in mind, but there is nothing inherently wrong with it.”

A series of swastikas were painted the garage of a Jewish-owned house on East 5th Street in Midwood last weekend as well as on an apartment building across the street. The words “Die Jews” were also painted on the garage. A building of the Yeshiva of Brooklyn was also vandalized.

Councilman David Greenfield, who represents part of Midwood, said the perpetrator’s religion made little difference.

“Overall we are seeing a lot of anti-Semitism in the form of swastikas in the last few weeks, in Queens and Midtown, on a scale that we have never seen before, so the fact that we have an individual in custody is comforting,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

“I think Jewish people are capable of anti-Semitism, so I don’t see it as a matter of Jew versus non-Jew. A lot of these acts have no particular rhyme or reason.”

The vandalism, discovered Sunday morning, follows an incident in November in a nearby area of Midwood, when, on the day after the anniversary of Kristallnacht, swastikas were painted on the ground on Ocean Parkway and several cars were torched.

But in that incident, police are now considering the possibility that it was an insurance scam disguised as a bias crime, local media reported.

A police source told The Jewish Week Tuesday that that information “was released too soon” and that Hate Crimes investigators had yet to make a conclusion.

A swastika was also found scrawled in the heavily Jewish Wythe Avenue housing complex in Williamsburg on Jan. 12, and four days earlier several storefronts on Sixth Avenue near Bryant Park in Midtown were targeted with swastikas, including a bookstore and clothing shop. None was overtly Jewish-owned. Security cameras captured a group of youths identified as Asian carrying out the vandalism, according to the Village Voice, but no suspects have been arrested.

Michael Miller, executive vice president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater New York, said he had confidence in the police to uncover both the culprits and their motives in all these incidents.

“It’s much too early to determine if this is a wave of anti-Semitism,” said Miller. “Until the perpetrators are identified we can’t either rule it in or out. Based on the Hate Crimes Task Force’s record in these investigations I’m confident justice will be served.”

The Anti-Defamation League recently announced that it does not automatically classify the painting of a swastika as an anti-Semitic crime because the Nazi icon has become so ubiquitous a symbol of hatred and protest and is often used against non-Jews.

In another incident involving a synagogue last weekend, thieves broke into Temple Beth-El in the small Bronx community of City Island and stole ritual items, including silver crowns from Holocaust-era Torah scrolls and kiddush cups, shortly before Shabbat.

“Instead of preparing to welcome Shabbat with joyful song and dance, community members and clergy arrived to a mess in the sanctuary and police investigators saying, “Don’t touch anything,” said the congregation’s rabbi, Shohama Weiner, and a shul member, David Evan Markus, in an e-mail message to The Jewish Week.

“We’re lucky: we weren’t firebombed like the Temple Beth-El of Rutherford, New Jersey; nobody was hurt and our Torahs were unharmed,” they wrote. “But the recent spate of violence against area synagogues is a sobering reminder of our world’s brokenness.”

JTA contributed to this report

Gingrich Needs A Boost In New York

2011-12-14T10:06:00.000-08:00

Long Island developer could open doors for ex-speaker's surging campaign.

New York donors haven’t been particularly generous to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s mercurial presidential campaign. He’s collected just over $52,000 across the state as of Sept. 30, according to campaign finance records, a drop in the bucket compared with chief Republican rival Mitt Romney’s $3,592,231.

Even long shot Ron Paul has raked in more cash in the Empire State: $303,161, as did Tim Pawlenty, who is no longer in the race.

But Gingrich, who has benefited from the withdrawal of scandal-plagued Herman Cain earlier this month and is now the front runner in some key primary states, has one important New York ally in Lawrence Kadish, above, a Long Island-based real estate investor and co-founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition, who reportedly spent $250,000 to help George W. Bush in his instrumental 2000 Florida win. He is also a major soft-money contributor with a long history of six-figure gifts to Republican campaign committees.

Kadish, his wife, Susan and son Charles each donated the federal maximum of $5,000 to Gingrich ($2,500 each for the general and primary campaigns), Federal Elections Commission records show. Those donations, made before Gingrich’s recent surge, are the largest family contribution to Gingrich recorded so far in the state.

Kadish is president of First Fiscal Trust and a resident of Old Westbury. He serves on the board of the conservative think tanks Hudson Institute and Claremont Institute and supports the pro-Israel media-watch organizations CAMERA and MEMRI.

He is credited as an executive producer of a 2008 documentary film about energy independence, “We Have The Power,” which features Gingrich. He is also executive producer of a pro-life film hosted by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Both films were produced by Citizens United, a conservative group that calls for limited government.

In an interview Monday, Kadish, who is New York’s male representative to the Republican National Committee, said he has been a longtime supporter of Gingrich.

“He’s the most knowledgeable person out there,” he said. “I’ve read his books, seen his videos, heard his speeches, met with him on many occasions. He has a real commitment to getting the country in order and protecting our allies.”

“He’s out front on energy independence and understands what has to be done. And he’s always been there for Israel.”

Kadish added “he’s the guy who can stand up to the Putins of this world,” referring to former KGB head and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin who is poised to return to the presidency of Russia. “They might intimidate others but they’re not going to intimidate [Gingrich]. He is more likely to intimidate them.”

Of the Republican House members who served under Gingrich who have recently come forward to trash the speaker as tyrannical, Kadish said “When you are the speaker of the House people come to you and ask for things and you can’t give everything to everyone, or maybe they didn’t agree with the Contract With America.”

Kadish said he agrees “100 percent” with comments Gingrich has made recently doubting the viability of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, whom Gingrich dismissively called a “made-up people,” positions that could make him a tough sell among American Jews who overwhelmingly support a negotiated settlement.

That fact was surely not lost on Democrats. The head of the National Jewish Democratic Council, David Harris, told The New York Times, “What he’s saying is far to the right of the democratically elected Likud leadership of the State of Israel, not to mention established U.S. policy for decades. This is as clear a demonstration as one needs that he’s not ready for prime time.”

The remark about the Palestinians, in an interview with The Jewish Channel, drew rebuke from other political figures, including Romney. On Tuesday a leading pro-Israel senator, Connecticut independent Joseph Lieberman, said “to me, the important fact is that the Palestinians are a people today, and any resolution of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has to be between two people, two nations.”

Following the Jewish Channel interview here, Gingrich’s campaign clarified his position, saying “Newt Gingrich supports a negotiated peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, which will necessarily include agreement between Israel and the Palestinians over the borders of a Palestinian state.”

Gingrich has another powerful Jewish supporter in Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino magnate, who with his wife has given the maximum donation to Gingrich while contributing $7 million to conservative organizations associated with the former speaker, The Forward reported.

But Gingrich has not yet resonated well with New York’s Republican Jews. As the April 24 primary here approaches, it remains to be seen if that will change as he surges in the polls or if they will pump more money into Romney’s campaign, seeing him as more electable.

On Dec. 6, at the Hyatt in Midtown, Gingrich met with some 30 prominent Jewish New Yorkers, including Daily News publisher Morton Zuckerman, an ex-chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; developer and Republican Jewish Coalition co-founder George Klein; Presidents Conference executive vice chairman Malcolm Hoenlein; National Council of Young Israel Executive Director Rabbi Pesach Lerner and Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind.

Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein, who lives in Pennsylvania, also attended.

“[Gingrich] was extremely impressive,” said Hikind, a Democrat, who has been said to be considering an endorsement of Gingrich, whose views are in line with many constituents of Hikind’s heavily Orthodox Borough Park and Flatbush district. “There are a lot of people from my part of the Jewish community that are pro-Israel that really like the guy. There’s no question that he is refreshing.” Referring to Gingrich’s admitted extramarital affairs, Hikind said, “Everyone in the world knows he comes with a lot of baggage. He has addressed it. That really doesn’t bother you much; people make mistakes.

“Obama before the election sat in a church and for a long time went along with the things being said. Nobody ever cried out about the issue of Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright, which was so much more important than the issues of Newt Gingrich.”

Asked if he thinks Gingrich could gain support in New York, Kadish said, “If they pay attention. New Yorkers are pro-Israel and they understand that we have a $15 trillion debt that will go up to $18 trillion under Obama. The way to deal with that is energy independence, and Newt is all over that.”

A prominent Jewish Romney supporter, Lee Cowen, who serves on the former Massachusetts governor’s finance committee, said Gingrich’s popularity was part of “a game of Whack-A-Mole” in the GOP primary.

“Romney is the best qualified candidate to be president and his campaign has been steady and strong,” said Cowen, a Washington lobbyist. “But you keep having these other candidates who are popular but flame out for one reason for another. I suspect that will be the case with Newt Gingrich. He’s a very smart person and a great visionary but I just din’t think he’s well-rounded enough for an executive role in terms of running the country.

“In the Jewish community and especially the Republican Jewish community, I suspect that’s the prevailing opinion.”

Jeff Wiesenfeld, a Republican and Jewish activist who is a trustee of the City University of New York, also said it was likely Gingrich’s rise would be a temporary phenomenon in the campaign.

“You have to presume that at the end of the day, when it all sorts itself out, it will be Romney, the establishment candidate,” said Wiesenfeld. “But when there is some excitement for someone like Gingrich who is in the highly conservative camp, it takes on a life of its own.”

He added, however, that “it would be quite a spectacle to see a debate between an individual like Obama who is ill-equipped to speak in a debate without reading cue cards and someone like Gingrich who can hold his own.”

Samsung Claims 300 Million Devices Sold

2011-12-14T09:41:00.000-08:00

With a range of devices on all major carriers, Samsung is calling this its best year ever in the smartphone market, with a projected record of 300 million units shipped.

The company announced the milestone, which surpasses its 2010 record of 280 million units, in a statement Monday, with the president and head of Samsung's Mobile Communications Business, JK Shin, saying, "We look forward to extending this success going into 2012," Reuters reported.

'Upscale Designs, Cutting Edge'

A request for comment from Edelman PR, which handles publicity for the South Korea-based technology giant in the United States, was not answered in time for publication.

But a company exec told Dong-A Ilbo (the East Asia Daily) that, "We attained the 300-million mark because we've introduced hit models in succession by banking on upscale designs and cutting-edge technology in 'full product lineup' ranging from feature phones (ordinary handsets), touch phones and smartphones."

New Samsung phones released this year include the Galaxy S II, the Skyrocket for AT&T and Droid Charge for Verizon Wireless. The latter two phones work on the carriers' new 4G long term evolution high-speed data network . Perhaps most eagerly awaited is the Galaxy Nexus, running the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android . The phone is expected to come to the U.S. this week via Verizon Wireless after a European debut.

The Galaxy S II, sequel to the phone that has variants on all four carriers, has done particularly well, with a reported 10 million units sold so far, on top of another 20 million for its predecessor this year.

The Dong-A Ilbo report said Samsung's handset output has soared since 1996, when it produced 1 million, with 100 million in 2005, 200 million in 2009, and now 300 million, with a total of 1.6 billion units manufactured. (The number of sold units was not included).

Most of Samsung's smartphones are Android-powered, although it also sells the Omnia and Focus, powered byMicrosoft 's Windows Phone 7 platform. Samsung's feature phones, with no operating system, include the Star, Duos, Wave and Monte Slide.

Technology consultant Rob Enderle of Enderle Group said Samsung accomplished its milestone with phones that are bigger (screen sizes of more than 4 inches are typical on many devices, including the Galaxy S II) and with more features than rivals. And they are generally cheaper and in more stores, he added.

The Vendor To Beat

"It really helps establish Android as a major platform and Samsung as the vendor to beat at the moment, and the one most at risk as Motorola, now owned by Google, increases their pressure on the market," said Enderle, referring to Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a deal currently under regulators' scrutiny in the European Union.

"Android may end up to be largely a two-vendor platform, and Samsung is doing a credible job assuring they will be one of them," Enderle said.

Like Weiner, District's Fate Uncertain

2011-06-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

Rep. Anthony Weiner was at an undisclosed location for sex-addiction rehab this week, leaving behind the question of whether the disgraced politician would relent to pressure from Democratic Party leaders — including President Barack Obama — to leave Congress.

But he also left behind questions among those who enjoyed a long relationship with a representative who carefully cultivated his political ties to the Jewish community. There is a long list of potential candidates to succeed him.

At the same time, some fear that with Albany required to eliminate two congressional districts because of a declining state population, the controversy may make Weiner’s 9th an easy target, especially if the congressman is intent on staying in office.

Reapportionment, however, would not be a quick fix to end the festering controversy over Weiner’s online relationships and attempts to cover it up — a national distraction and an albatross for the Democrats — since the new district lines must be decided by a bipartisan commission that has not yet been formed. It must be in place by this time next year, when candidates for Congress begin gathering petitions for the ballot.

The 9th, perhaps the most concentrated Jewish district in the country, includes Forest Hills, Kew Gardens Hills and the Rockaways in Queens, and areas of Flatbush, Manhattan Beach and Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn.

“It would be extremely outrageous to try to eliminate the district,” said Kalman Yeger, a political consultant in the Flatbush portion of the district. “People would be screaming bloody murder and calling their Albany representatives to make sure we have a unified voice in Washington.”

Yeger, a former aide to Fernando Ferrer when he was Bronx borough president, noted that the district was expanded in the early ‘90s, when now-Sen. Chuck Schumer was the representative, to include central Queens because the people in both areas, including the large Orthodox communities, had similar interests.

The sprawling area of greater Flatbush, which contains smaller communities like Midwood, East Flatbush and Kings Highway, is already divided into districts represented by Weiner, Rep. Yvette Clarke, Rep. Ed Towns and Rep. Jerry Nadler, all Democrats.

“If the communities are chopped up [further], we will have no voice in Washington,” Yeger said. “It will be like we don’t exist.”

But Forest Hills resident Manny Behar, a former director of the Queens Jewish Community Council who has worked at City Hall and Queens Borough Hall, said it was too soon to make dire predictions.

“A lot would depend on how the redistricting is done,” said Behar. “Right now the district is mainly in Queens and has a part of Brooklyn. If it was divvied up where Central Queens was divided into several neighborhoods, the neighborhoods would not have any influence in any of them, and that becomes a real problem.

“But if Central Queens is put into one district we would be significant in that district and it could be less of a problem.”

The federal Voting Rights Act protects districts that are heavily black, Hispanic, Asian or Native American but not religious minorities. Since Weiner’s district is surrounded by areas that are protected, with any changes subject to approval by the Justice Department, it could stand out as attractive for elimination.

Although the redistricting committee, appointed by the minority and majority of both state houses, will make recommendations, the final decision will be left to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver — both Democrats — and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a Republican. Since control of the Legislature is split there will have to be compromises between the leaders, such as losing one likely Democrat seat and one likely Republican seat or setting up even matches between incumbents in merged districts.

A Jewish political insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect his relationships in Albany, said Silver is known to be protective of members of Congress who formerly served in his caucus, which includes a large portion of the downstate delegation. Representatives Nadler and Towns, Greg Meeks and Joseph Crowley are all former Assembly members. Weiner served in the City Council.

“Eventually, Dean and Shelly will have to come to a deal and if past deals are any indication, they will do one upstate and one downstate,” said the insider.

A spokesman for Silver, Michael Whyland, said on Tuesday that the Weiner controversy would have no bearing on redistricting.

“The speaker has indicated that the process is ongoing and still eight months to a year away,” said Whyland. “Whatever is going on is really not a factor in anything right now.”

While heavily Democratic, the 9th CD has grown increasingly conservative, supporting the Republican candidate in larger numbers in each of the past three presidential elections, a factor that may be tied to residents’ worldview following 9/11.

As calls for Weiner’s resignation increased, the Jewish communities of the district have not openly spoken out on behalf of the staunch Israel supporter, who has also helped Jewish organizations apply for Homeland Security funds to protect institutions.

But in interviews, leaders said they are pained by the spectacle of a man widely viewed as a rising star and mayoral material three weeks ago reduced to a national punch line with a career in flames.

“As far as I am concerned, his major advantage is that unlike other politicians he is accessible,” said Rabbi Fabian Schonfeld, who recently retired as rabbi of the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills. “His office is always ready to help. It’s very unfortunate and tragic.”

The rabbi declined to say whether he felt Weiner should resign as continued details and images of his secret life of social media connections before and after his marriage emerge. “We’ll have to see how this plays out. But [Manhattan Rep.] Charles Rangel didn’t resign. [Bill] Clinton, the president of the United States was impeached and didn’t resign. The question is, will his resignation help heal the situation or not? The way I see it right now he is compelled by circumstances to resign, which would make me very unhappy.”

A Marist poll last week found that 56 percent of district residents want Weiner to stay in office, as compared to 60 percent of Americans who want him to step down in a survey taken by Public Policy Polling. Fifty-five percent of women in the latter poll said Weiner should step down while more men, 66 percent, want him out.

As the House reconvened Monday for the first time since the scandal broke, there were some scattered signs of support for him among colleagues, despite the pointed demands from Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Democratic National Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida that he step down.

“I have yet to find anything — not that I’ve dissected it — but I’ve yet to find anything that may touch upon the breaking of the House rules,” Rep. Bill Pascrell, a New Jersey Democrat told the Washington Post. “If I did, I would immediately ask for his resignation. But right now, I’m more concerned about his health and the health of his family, and that’s what friends are for.”

The second-ranking Democrat, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, did not in his appearances on Sunday talk shows demand outright that Weiner resign. And even Obama seemed to couch his language carefully, saying that if he found himself in Weiner’s position he would resign.

Still, many see Weiner’s burden as insurmountable even if he stays in office. “If he wants to be stubborn, he can stick it out and use some legal maneuvering to fight,” said University of Virgina political science professor Larry Sabato. “But his career is over; he’s finished as a candidate for mayor, and it’s hard to see him resurrected easily for anything else.”

Among those Democrats mentioned as candidates to succeed Weiner in a special election are former Queens Assembly member and City Council member Melinda Katz, a candidate in the1998 House primary won by Weiner and now a lawyer in private practice; Queens Councilman Eric Gioia and brothers David and Mark Weprin, who have each served in the Assembly and City Council. Republican Bob Turner, who won 40 percent of the vote in last year’s race against Weiner, is also likely to run again.

“I don’t think the district should be eliminated based on personalities,” said David Weprin, an Assemblyman who won the seat last year previously held by his brother and father. “I would not want to see a seat lost in Queens, especially since our population has not gone down while upstate it has since the last update.” The law requires that all districts have equal populations — 719,298 each this time.

On the matter of Weiner’s future, Weprin said, “I personally resent national Democrats dictating whether the congressman should resign or not. The process should play out through the ethics investigation to determine if there were violations that warrant resignation. I don’t think the media, national Democrats or the Republicans should be deciding the direction this is going.”

Weprin said he had made no decision about whether to run except that he would not compete in a primary campaign against his brother.

David Pollock, associate executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council said that his organization would lobby to ensure that no Jewish neighborhood is left politically isolated by reapportionment.

“Our concern has traditionally been that Jewish communities aren’t fragmented so that those Jewish communities cannot get an elected official’s attention,” said Pollock, who noted the success of voting blocs in neighborhoods like Crown Heights and Williamsburg.

“There is no magical number” of effective voting, Pollock said, “but clearly the Williamsburg community can get Congressman Towns’ attention and Yvette Clarke has been responsive to Crown Heights and Flatbush.”

Nokia Deal Could Make Phone 7 No. 2 in World Market

2011-06-15T08:50:00.000-07:00

If a research group's reading of the tea leaves is correct, time is on Microsoft's side in the fast-changing smartphone market.

Framingham, Mass.-based International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts the software giant's Windows Phone 7 will be the second most popular mobile operating system in the world by 2015 with 20.5 percent of the market afterGoogle 's Android, which would dominate with 43.8 percent.

Replacing Symbian

That would be a huge boost from the measly 3.8 percent forecast for this year by IDC. The growth would largely come at the expense of Nokia's declining Symbian platform, which will be gradually replaced with Phone 7 in a deal between Microsoft and the Finnish phone manufacturer announced earlier this year.

Symbian would shrink from 20.6 percent this year to an abysmal 0.1 percent in that analysis, while other major platforms would decline less -- 14.2 percent to 13.4 percent for Research In Motion's BlackBerry and 18.2 percent to 16.9 percent for Apple's iOS, which is currently number two. The only other system to grow in this time frame would be Google's Android, from 38.9 percent to 43.8 percent.

Android's open-source operating system is available on a wide range of devices offered by all major wireless carriers. Microsoft has similar designs for Phone 7, with handsets made by Acer, Fujitsu and ZTE expected to join the current slate of Dell, HTC, Samsung and LG smartphones.

"If you take a look at the devices coming out for 2012 and the anticipated cadence of device releases, it helps push their numbers up," said IDC wireless industry analyst Ramon Llamas, citing conversations with Microsoft and Nokia officials.

He acknowledged that both Nokia and Microsoft have "a pretty low profile" in the important U.S. smartphone market, but in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia/Pacific region, "Nokia has out-and-out leadership across those regions' smartphone business , which gives us that much more to hang our hat on" in making predictions.

Nokia Denies Sale Rumors

The updated numbers from IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker come as rumors swirl about a possible takeover of Nokia, whose profits have been slipping, by either Microsoft or Samsung.

Llamas said he accepts the word of Nokia CEO Stephen Elop -- a former Microsoft exec who made the deal to replace Symbian with Windows Phone 7 on most Nokia devices -- that the company is not for sale.

To get ahead in the U.S., Microsoft will need to generate more enthusiasm among carriers and customers. A PC magazine report Friday said that at retail outlets of the four major carriers in Manhattan, Windows Phone 7 devices were in short supply and salespeople were blasé about them.

A Verizon Wireless employee told the magazine that "one out of 500 customers comes in here asking for a Windows phone."

Nokia is expected to ship its first Phone 7 devices, complete with the system's Mango update, later this year.

Give It A 'Rest' Says Retiring Lieberman

2011-05-05T18:44:00.000-07:00

Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who will not seek a fifth term in 2012, hasn't announced his future plans. But as a prolific author and prominent observant Jew, Lieberman says he wants to do "a little bit of missionary work," promoting Sabbath observance as a divine gift and lifting the mystique about what an observant Jew can and cannot do, especially while holding public responsibilities, within the confines of the day of rest.

Simon and Schuster will publish "The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath," written by Lieberman and David Klinghoffer in August.

The Jewish Week caught up with the former Democrat and current independent, 69, during a Passover vacation in Westchester with his wife Hadassah and their extended family, and he spoke candidly and extensively about what motivated the book, some pressing issues of the day, his place in history and the future.

Jewish Week: What do constituents and others have to say to you since you announced your retirement from the Senate?

Lieberman: People are very gracious and thanked me for my service, and were curious about what I was going to do. … The other night there was an interesting question someone asked about who would take my place [when he retires in January 2013], as it were, particularly in terms of U.S.-Israel relations. I said that no one is irreplaceable; it was my honor to play this role. Wherever I go and whatever I do I will always be concerned about the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. Yet there are a host of people already there who continue to play a significant role in Israel's security - the New York senators, Kirsten Gillibrand who is new and cares deeply about Israel and I have worked closely with her on Iran and other issues; people in both parties. John McCain is very strong and rising in importance as a pro-Israel senator.

Do people express concern about Israel and the Obama administration?

Yes, and I say that Obama is certainly pro-Israel; his whole record shows that. I mean he's done some things such as call for a settlement freeze, which I thought was a mistake. And I think anybody looking back at it now will say that it didn't work, [that] it didn't accomplish anything, [that] it created doubt in our relationship on the Israeli side with the government. But actually, not only did it not advance the prospect of negotiations between Israel and Palestinians, it seems to have set them back because the Palestinians raised the threshold. … So in other words there are things I have disagreed with. I've now been through two Bush presidents, Clinton and Obama, and if you look not only at the ones I served with but all American presidents since 1948, some generally more supportive, some less, there are times when almost every presidency is more supportive and times when he is less supportive. But the great guarantor of the U.S. Israel relationship is a pro-Israel, bipartisan majority in both houses, and I'm really pleased to be able to say that is stronger than ever.

How did you pick the topic of your new book?

Well, I've been very lucky to write six books in my life, none of which will jump instantly into your mind because they were not bestsellers, but this is very different. I'm very fortunate that I had the chance to write this book because it comes from deep inside me.

Rabbi Menachem Genack [CEO of the Orthodox Union's Kosher Division] and I have known each other for a long time and we learn together pretty regularly on the phone on Fridays. When he comes to Washington he sees me, and for a while he was noodging me that I should write a book about Joseph from the Torah, because of him being a political leader. But I said, Rabbi, you know what I have inside me: at some point I would like to write a book about Shabbat, which is so important to me because I experience it. It begins with a commandment from God as a gift; it really has centered my life in so many ways. People always ask me what I do and how do you do it on the Sabbath.

In the last couple of years Rabbi Genack formed the OU Press and they are doing some very significant publishing … and he said, 'Why don't you write the book that you want to do about Shabbat?" and he said the OU Press will publish it, I promise you, but I think some other commercial publisher would do it. Interestingly, [Simon and Schuster] has a subdivision called Howard Books that mostly publishes books for religious Christian readers, and the publisher thinks there would be a real interest in this book in the Christian community.

Are you dealing with some of the questions people raised - some well meaning, some not - when you ran for vice president and president about what your limitations might be on Shabbat?

I decided the best thing I could do in introducing people to what the Shabbat is, is to take them through a typical Shabbat. I begin with Erev Shabbat and go through the whole day to the end of Saturday night, Havdalah. So there is a lot of description about what happens … I talked about the basic ideas underlying Shabbat. The book is an appeal to people. I say at the very beginning that I'm describing what Shabbat is and how important it's been in my life, how meaningful it has been to Hadassah and me in our marriage and with our family. I'm also very clear that I'm doing a little bit of marketing, or missionary work here.

People in our country work hard, and they can't get away from work; they have their BlackBerrys and cell phones. … Shabbat is just a gift I'm urging people to take on in whatever way is comfortable to them. … I have one chapter in which I say, in the middle of a Shabbat afternoon, I'm going to stop now and describe the occasions when observant Jews have a reason to set aside the normal restrictions of Shabbat. [They can be set aside] because there's a purpose greater than even those restrictions, that are related to the underlying purpose of Shabbat, which is to honor God's creations. I deal with pikuach nefesh [the precept which says that you can break the Sabbath to save a life], tell some personal stories about how I walked to the Capitol on Shabbat when I anticipated there would be votes; what I've done when I've had calls come into the house on Shabbat, how I decided whether to take them or not. I actually went back and did some research, and there are Talmudic opinions all the way back to Roman times about the occasions when normal prohibitions have to be set aside for reasons of security for the community.

I hope that's of interest. The truth is our religion is very detailed and yet it has perspective. As I said, if you were walking along the street and saw someone having a heart attack, you wouldn't say 'Oh, gee I wish I could call an ambulance, but it's my Shabbat'. Of course you can call an ambulance, and in a similar way if someone calls about a national security matter, of course I would surely have to answer it.

What has it been like for you to have your religious views and practices under a microscope, both from within and outside your community?

It comes with territory. As my friend [New York Assembly Speaker] Shelly Silver likes to say, it is what it is. As time went on I felt that perhaps this was some sort of special opportunity in terms being observant in public life, an opportunity to explain to people why we do what we do and why I do what I do. And in the book there are times when I say I made this decision [but] I'm not sure every Jew would have made this decision.

The 2000 election and recount will be debated throughout history. In your heart, do you believe that you won?

I do, particularly because I know that our ticket got a half-million more votes than the other ticket. In a way I'm skipping over the Electoral College. Whenever I either visit a foreign country or am being visited by a foreign leader, they are puzzled about how you could have gotten a half-million more votes and not taken office, and I have to explain the Electoral College. ... There is no question that it was close in Florida; I think for various reasons that Al Gore and I had won, but life has to go on.

What would you have done differently? What about Tennessee and Arkansas?

Good point. None of these are unconventional answers. There are a few things, like sending Bill Clinton to Arkansas for the last two weeks of the campaign, or Al Gore would have had a sense earlier on that Tennessee was in some difficulty and spent more time there. In Florida, I happen to have been close to the Cuban community because of all the controversy, I think, over the Elian Gonzales case. The campaign didn't use me very effectively in the Cuban community and, of course, if we could have taken two or three more percentage points in the Cuban community we would have carried Florida. But these are all, sort of, 'could have beens.' The reality is, I still have -- believe it or not, it could just be my nature -- a very positive feeling about the whole thing because I was given this extraordinary honor by Al Gore, a singular decision; there are very few decisions as big in American politics where a single person makes a [vice] presidential nominee.

Also, as a Jewish American, the fact that I was chosen for the ticket -- I said this in the book we wrote about the campaign -- the night that Gore selected me and we flew to Nashville, he said: 'I want you to know that I talked to a lot of people, Jewish and non-Jewish, about whether the country was ready for a Jewish vice president and the conclusion is that fear of anti-Semitism among Jews was radically greater than the reality of anti-Semitism among Christians, and so I decided I can choose who I wanted to choose, which was you.'

And the second thing is we experienced almost no anti-Semitism.

Almost?

Well, there was a little flurry of anti-Semitism on the Internet when I was first named. But we were never confronted with anything. I always say to people that politics, even though there can be disputes, as in Florida, is like sports. It comes down to numbers, and in the end, the first time a Jewish candidate was on a national ticket, the ticket won by within half a million votes. To me that says what an open, fair country it is.

I'll tell you something, I went to Obama in '08 when I saw him on the Senate floor, even though I had already supported McCain. It was after he clinched the nomination; we had a conversation, and he said, 'You know, I understand that one of the reasons I was able to do this was because of what you did in 2000.'

What do you make of all the fixation on the president's birth certificate?

I think it's a real waste of time; I don't get it. From all that I can tell, I haven't done an exhaustive investigation but from what I've read in newspapers and seen on television he was born in Hawaii. The former health director of Honolulu she said she saw [the birth certificate] with her own eyes. [Editor's note: President Obama released the long form of his birth certificate the day after this interview.]

It's early, but who do you see supporting for president in 2012?

[Laughs] I'm just going to enjoy being independent for a while.

Do you think the president deserves to be re-elected?

I think it's early to say. I've tried my best to work with him when I agreed with him and to be respectfully disagreeable when I don't.

What do you think about J Street?

Listen, this is our political system; they have a right to do what they want to do -- to organize, to express a different point of view than I have about Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Are they bringing something constructive to the table?

I've got to be honest with you, I don't really see their stuff enough to know whether they are. I can tell you this, in my opinion they don't have much influence on Capitol Hill at this point. AIPAC has tremendous influence in terms of the attitudes of members of Congress toward Israel.

There has been growing support for clemency for Jonathan Pollard by former senior administration officials and intelligence leaders. You have not supported his release in the past. Has your position changed?+

To me, this has always been a matter for the president. I mean, way back when I was first elected, maybe it was in the first three or four years, in the early '90s, people asked me about this and I was fully briefed on it, a classified briefing. Pollard did some terrible things, not just for Israel but otherwise. And the intelligence community feels it would be a terrible precedent to set, and they are still saying it now, I presume, to let him go because of what it would say for others. They are not necessarily thinking about other Israeli agents; they're thinking about other ethnic Americans.

But he's been in a long time. I guess my own feeling has been that this really is a matter that ultimately must be resolved between the prime minister of Israel and the president of the United States, but if you're asking if I'm going to get involved, no.

Is there a point where you might feel he has served enough time for his crime?

He's been in a very long time. Our system of justice unfortunately sometimes produces results like this. Two people, even in the same state, can both be charged with murder and convicted of murder. One gets a life sentence for some reason and maybe that is commuted to 25 years; the other gets executed. I mean that's just the way it is.

Probably the question you hear most these days is, what's next?

Yeah, and the great answer is, I don't know. This is the first time in decades [that I don't know what's next]. It's not that I've always known what's next, but it has always been clearly in elective politics. So, when I made the decision not to run again, I was saying my career in elected politics is over. But public service has been so much a part of my life, including the U.S. Israel relationship, that I'll always want to be somewhat involved in these issues. But I don't know, and I've got time. I have until January, 2013. Nothing specific at all, and I'm enjoying it.

Would you rule out being a lobbyist?

I'm not going to become a lobbyist.

Mototola And Sprint Debut Smartphones Aimed At Businesses

2011-05-05T18:40:00.000-07:00

New feature-packed smartphones from Motorola Mobility are aimed at business users. The Android-powered Motorola XPRT and Titanium will be offered by Sprint Nextel. Both Android phones and Apple's iPhone are targeting Research In Motion's dominance in the business market, but RIM continued fighting back at its BlackBerry World conference.

Looking to increase its foothold in a business -user space that is very much in play, Motorola Mobility on Thursday launched two new feature-packed smartphones aimed at enterprises, to be distributed by Sprint Nextel.

Both the XPRT and Titanium are powered by Google's Android operating system. The XPRT goes on sale June 5 for $129.99 with a two-year voice and data plan, including a $10 charge for premium add-on data. The price and availability for the Titanium have not yet been announced.

Productivity and Security

"Motorola XPRT delivers the security features enterprise customers demand without scrimping on the latest in technology, while Motorola Titanium is a rugged Android smartphone with Nextel Direct Connect's sub-second Push-to-Talk," said Paget L. Alves, president of Sprint's business division.

Motorola's vice president for sales, Jeff Miller, added that the phones "blend feature-packed consumer experiences with an optimal set of productivity and security tools."

Both phones have 3.1-inch touchscreens with a full QWERTY keyboards. The XPRT has access to corporate e-mail through Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync as well as POP and IMAP. The XPRT runs Android 2.2 and has Worldmode for international roaming in more than 200 countries; a 3G mobile hot spot for up to five Wi-Fi-enabled devices; a five-megapixel camera with camcorder and dual LED flash for low-light performance; and a microSD slot with a 2GB memory card included and supporting up to 32GB.

The Titanium, which ships with Android 2.1, supports Nextel Direct Connect and Google mobile services and has a five-megapixel camera with camcorder, 4x zoom and flash, GPS navigation, and a microSD slot with a 2GB memory card included and supporting up to 32GB. The Titanium is designed to meet military specifications for dust, shock, vibration, low pressure, solar radiation, and high and low temperatures, Motorola said.

BlackBerry Still Leads Businesses

The new Motorola phones come just days after Research In Motion at its BlackBerry World conference announced Multi-Platform Enterprise Mobile support and two new Bold smartphones, as well as integration with Microsoft's Bing search engine. Though it has lost market share to Android and Apple's iOS in the general U.S. smartphone market, BlackBerry still appears to have an edge among business users.

A study by marketing research firm TNS in January, based on its Businesswave data from the third quarter of 2010, found that 69 percent of businesses use BlackBerry devices, including 81 percent of companies with more than 1,000 employees. Apple's iPhone and other devices have higher penetration among smaller businesses, the company said. Both Apple and Android are working hard to move beyond consumers to woo enterprises.

"Google's Android team has stated that in 2012, going forward, business and enterprise will take a new center seat," said analyst Gerry Purdy of MobilTrax. "There is a whole lot of development going on on the coattails of the consumer applications."

He added that while BlackBerry's success has long been built around messaging, Android, Apple and Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 could topple its hold within the next year. One way to stop that, he suggested, is to give BlackBerry smartphones the QNX operating system used in the PlayBook tablet.

HTC's Thunderbolt for LTE Will Roll Out on Verizon

2011-03-17T09:33:00.000-07:00

Read This story and others on NewsFactor.

Keeping its promise to be "first to 4G," HTC will roll out its Thunderbolt smartphone for the Verizon Wireless Long Term Evolution network beginning Thursday, with a steep price of $249.99 with a two-year contract.

And to light a fire under consumers, Verizon is offering two grab-'em-while-you-can incentives: Unlimited data for $30, and free mobile hot-spot capability for up to eight tethered devices.

The latter perk has an expiration date of May 15, after which hot spots will cost $20 for every two gigabytes of data. The unlimited 4G data plan is good for two years, but will soon be phased out for new users, probably toward the summer.

"We announced earlier that we will eventually move to usage-based pricing this year, but we do not have a specific date," Verizon spokesperson Albert Aydin told us Tuesday.

Leading the Pack

Verizon's Nationwide Talk plan for the Thunderbolt begins at $39.99 per month.

The Thunderbolt is the first of four phones unveiled at January's Consumer Electronics Show that will open Verizon's LTE network, now available in 38 markets and 60 airports, for widespread consumer use after its rollout in December for computer modems only.

The other phones are Motorola's Droid Bionic, LG's Revolution, and Samsung's SCH-i510. All four devices are powered by Google's Android operating system.

But Thunderbolt -- with a 4.3-inch touchscreen, one-gigahertz Snapdragon processor, a kickstand for media viewing, and dual cameras -- seems to be the flagship LTE device. It has appeared in Verizon LTE commercials, and Taiwan-based HTC placed ads on its web site before CES promising that its device would be "First to 4G, Again." HTC also makes the similarly designed EVO, which was the first device on Sprint Nextel's high-speed WiMAX network, and the G2, which runs on T-Mobile's high-speed HSPA+ network.

The $249.99 price is higher than the $199 average for smartphones subsidized by carriers with contracts, indicating that Verizon, often found to have the highest customer-satisfaction rating, will charge a premium for LTE products.

Premium Price

"New phone launches, especially exclusive deals, always have premium pricing," said analyst Kirk Parsons of J.D. Power and Associates. "And since the new device is on the 4G-lite network, data plans and service costs will be more expensive based on available broadband speed ."

Verizon is promising download speeds of five to 12 megabits per second and upload speeds of two to five Mbps in the LTE Mobile Broadband coverage area, and since a large portion of the United States is not covered by LTE, the Thunderbolt and other phones will roam to 3G coverage when necessary. Verizon hopes to complete its LTE rollout by 2014.

While all four major U.S. carriers now offer what they call 4G high-speed devices, none meet the International Telecommunication Union's definition of 4G, which is one gigabyte per second for stationary users, so the term 4G Lite is often used to describe U.S. networks.

"Under global standards, the '4G' technology that the U.S. carriers are rolling out are not true 4G networks in the sense of data speeds," Parsons said.

Making Judaism Cool In The Desert

2011-03-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

Read this article and others at The Jewish Week website.

Las Vegas — When Sandra Graff attended a “Vodka-Latke” social event sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara (Calif.) last Chanukah, she submitted her e-mail address for updates on future events.

A few months later Graff, 32, found herself in Las Vegas, one of 1,200 young Jews to gather for TribeFest, three days of entertainment, socializing and discussions intended to cultivate better Jewish engagement among people of her generation.

“I grew up Jewish but haven’t been practicing much since I moved to California from Chicago 12 years ago,” said Graff, who is studying to be a substance abuse counselor. She describes herself as “somewhere between Reform and Conservative, not very religious, but very Jewish.”

At TribeFest, Graff said she enjoyed connecting with peers, reliving moments from Hebrew school such as singing “Hatikvah” and the communal “hamotzi” prayer before lunch and listening to forums such as a session on LGBT inclusion in the Jewish community.

“Although I’m heterosexual it was interesting to see two lesbian women say, ‘this is who I am’ and put it out there and not be afraid and see what kind of response they get. I think we as a community should be accepting.”

Because 40 organizations as well as local federations partnered with the Jewish Federations of North America, the umbrella group for communal philanthropy, to create TribeFest, a large number of participants — including a dozen interviewed by The Jewish Week — have professional or lay leadership ties to those groups.

But Graff is an example of precisely the demographic TribeFest was aimed at as communal leadership grapples with what they fear will be a shortage of strongly affiliated and committed Jews and future leaders, outside the Orthodox community.

“When I went to California I felt like I was losing my roots,” she said. “I wanted to come back to a community where I knew I would always be accepted.”

Organizers of the event at the sprawling Mandalay Bay Casino and Resort worked overtime to break the mold of stuffy federation conferences of the past that have been geared toward activism and fundraising. And the setting was intentionally conducive to accommodate those who wanted to mix fun, networking and engagement — or skip the business part of it altogether and party with other Jews. One of the planners, speaking off the record, said that in selecting the setting and that of future TribeFests, the focus was on “places where people go for bachelor parties.”

Comedian Joel Chasnoff, in a Monday night stand-up appearance, quipped, “I think this is just what the Jewish world needs nine months from now — a bunch of babies named Mandalay Bay.”

The schedule alternated between main-stage gatherings with prominent speakers and issue-based breakout sessions, with evening cocktail parties accompanied by entertainment.

A crowd favorite was actress Mayim Bialik, who played the teenage sitcom character “Blossom” in the ‘90s and currently appears on CBS’ “Big Bang Theory.”

Bialik, 35, said in a Sunday afternoon address that she had attended programs sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles throughout childhood, even during her TV career, and now volunteers with the Jewish Free Loan Association in L.A.

“I personally chose to expand my Jewish observance when I started dating my husband in college,” she said. “But my Jewish identity exists alongside my observance, not because of it. It is not predicated in how many mitzvahs we do. Judaism is not a cafeteria religion but a tribe of cumulative acts.”

At Monday’s lunch session, two Jewish NFL team owners, Jonathan Kraft of the New England Patriots and Mark Wilf of the Minnesota Vikings spoke about their families’ experience escaping the Holocaust and their commitment to Jewish causes and business ties in Israel, as well as the dilemmas associated with games on the High Holy Days.

Risa Levitt, 33, said she came to TribeFest with her husband, Evan, who works for the Jewish Federation of Monmouth County, N.J., because “it’s a good opportunity to network with other Jewish community members.” She said the Monmouth federation offered a subsidy for the $475 registration fee and held a local event before TribeFest as well as a reception in Las Vegas. “Before we even left there was the added benefit of meeting other Jewish professionals from our area,” she said.

Steve Scheck, co-chair of the JFNA’s National Young Leadership Council said TribeFest was entirely planned by people of the demographic it is trying to reach: people in their 20s, 30s and 40s.

“We want to allow people to celebrate Judaism the way they think it’s important to celebrate Judaism, not how we tell them to,” said Scheck, 37, of Miami.

At each breakout session staff members scanned a barcode on the ID badges of participants as they entered, not only to track the popularity of each session but also to follow up with those participants based on the interest they expressed through their choices.

“We want people to walk away from this feeling connected in whatever way they want to feel connected,” said co-chair Alice Viroslav, 47, a radiologist from San Antonio. “So we’ll be able to see if their interests are in art, culture, Israel or spirituality.”

The co-chairs said JFNA young leadership programming in recent years has skewed toward people in their 30s and 40s, with younger Jews harder to reach. Key to their effort, they said, is creating a new connotation for the term federation, which millennials likely associate with baby boomers and stuffy programs taking place in boardrooms.

“We have to not just be comfortable but excited,” said Scheck, who owns a Wi-Fi service company in Miami. “We want to be a clearinghouse for all things Jewish, so if you want music, politics, philanthropy, there is a federation hub for that. We want people to connect with federations not because they have to but because they want to.”

At Monday night’s “Main Stage” event, featuring Chasnoff’s comedy and music from Yemen Blues, a small number of men wearing kipot blended in line around carving stations with women in cocktail dresses. At tables, married couples exchanged anecdotes about their kids as younger participants told recent college stories, reflecting the “big tent” allure of TribeFest.

“I’ve met everyone here from Chabad bochrim to a woman who is transgender and everyone in between,” said musician Yitz Jordan, aka Y Love, who performed Sunday night and also attended breakout sessions.

Ryan Skarbec, 30, a student at Touro University’s College of Medicine in Vallejo, Calif., said he found out about TribeFest from a friend who attended other JFNA young leadership programs and saw it as a way to reconnect with Jewish life.

“They’ve made it a great networking experience, but it’s also fun to meet other Jews, and it kind of spans the plethora of Judaism: the cultural, religious, ethnic views, the spiritual and religious views,” said Skarbec, who is not affiliated with any federation. “I think it will definitely engage a lot of people in a way that they may not have thought of until they got here.”

As for Graff she said she’ll take her future in communal life one step at a time. “I don’t know if I’m ready for leadership yet,” she said. “I think I need to go [to events] a couple of more times as a guest where I’m welcome and free to come and go.”

Microsoft Cites User Issues for Half of Phone 7 Failures

2011-02-24T16:07:00.000-08:00

Weak Internet connections and insufficient PC storage have been blamed for half the Windows Phone 7 update debacle. But Microsoft's Michael Stroh admitted the company is "learning from our first update." Microsoft also confirmed Samsung headsets have a technical issue. Either way, bricking of Windows Phone 7 devices is bad PR.

Read This Article and Others on NewsFactor.com

About half the Windows Phone 7 users who experienced update failures this week had weak Internet connections or insufficient storage Relevant Products/Services on their PCs, Microsoft Relevant Products/Services said Wednesday. And 90 percent of people who took advantage of the update had no issues.

But for one in 10 users, the result ranged from stalled updates to crashes or even bricked, or useless, phones -- an embarrassing snafu for Microsoft as it struggles to increase adoption of its revamped mobile operating system. The most serious problems involved phones made by Samsung.

'Learning from Our First Update'

While encouraging customers to make sure they have enough space and bandwidth before they begin the update, which requires a USB connection and the correct software for PCs or Macs, Windows Phone 7 blogger Michael Stroh admitted the company still has some work to do.

"Has the update process gone perfectly? No -- but few large-scale software updates ever do, and the engineering team here was prepared. Of course, when it's your phone that's having a problem -- or you're the one waiting -- it's still aggravating. That's why we're committed to learning from our first update and improving the process. We know we have work to do, and we won't be satisfied until you are."

Stroh admitted that there is a technical issue involving Samsung handsets that led Microsoft to suspend the update to those devices. "We're working to correct the problem as quickly as possible," he wrote. "But as a precaution, we've briefly suspended updates to Samsung phones. We are continuing to update other Windows Phone models as scheduled."

In addition to Samsung's Focus and Omnia 7, Windows Phone 7 powers Dell's Venue Pro, HTC's range of HD7 devices and LG's Optimus 7 and Quantum. The first CDMA Windows Phone 7 handset, the HTC Arrive, will be available through Sprint Nextel next month.

'A Serious Disconnect'

The fact that only Samsung phones were affected suggests the blame can lie with either the manufacturer or Microsoft. But Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, sees it as bad PR in any case.

"Unintended bricking -- as opposed to Apple reportedly bricking jailbroken iPhones a while back -- qualifies as an embarrassment no matter when it occurs, and suggests a serious disconnect between the software and hardware vendors," King said. "How big a deal this is depends entirely on how many actual consumer phones are involved. Microsoft made a lot of noise about the number of W7 Mobile licenses it sold, but it wasn't clear exactly how many of those devices had been sold to end users. For better or worse, this may help clarify that point."

King added that the debacle isn't likely to have much impact on the decision of the world's largest mobile-phone maker, Nokia -- now run by former Microsoft exec Steven Elop -- to use Windows Phone 7 to power Relevant Products/Services future devices.

"The company appears to be firmly in Microsoft's camp," King said. "I expect they'll describe this flub as a valuable 'lesson learned' and thus avoided."

NYJW: The Irvine 11: No Free Speech Case

2011-02-24T15:54:00.000-08:00

The district attorney of Orange County, California, recently filed charges against 11 members of a Muslim student group who disrupted a speech by Israel’s U.S. ambassador at the University of California at Irvine last February. The charges, filed just before the statue of limitations deadline, include one count each of conspiracy to disturb a meeting and one count each of disturbing the meeting. Those charges are in addition to disciplinary measures taken by the University of California. Faculty members, local faith and civic leaders and the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times have called on District Attorney Tony Rackauckus to drop the charges, which they describe as overkill.
The Jewish Week spoke to Marc D. Stern, the American Jewish Committee’s associate senior counsel for legal advocacy about the controversial case.

Q: Do you find this a complicated legal case or one that is clear-cut?

A: I don’t see a constitutional free speech issue, particularly. There’s no right to disrupt someone else’s meetings; [it’s] antithetical to whole notion of a democratic society and free speech to allow a small group to dominate a forum and exclude speech by virtue of noisemaking. So that’s very easy, cut and dried.
question, what’s not cut and dried and reasonable people can disagree about is whether it’s prudent to bring criminal charges after the university already completed its disciplinary process.

It doesn’t pose any legal questions; the DA is not bound by the university’s actions nor is he precluded from enforcing general laws against what goes on the grounds of the university. But whether it is a useful use of prosecutors’ resources is a debatable question.

They are not alleging, in this case for example, that Jewish protestors who disrupted a Palestinian speaker were not prosecuted and that shows selective prosecution. There was a rather naïve claim by a Jewish quote unquote progressive group [Jewish Voice For Peace] that they disrupted [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu and weren’t prosecuted, and that shows favoritism.

It’s two different jurisdictions. What goes on in Louisiana has no bearing on California. In any event they were wrong to try to prevent the prime minister from talking; there are different ways to protest without preventing the speaker from being heard.

What’s a little bit troubling, and I don’t say that it justifies the charges in and of itself, [is the notion] that disruption is somehow protected freedom of speech. Therefore, it may be necessary to make the point further that no, disruption is not an exercise of free speech. Now, notwithstanding that, the prosecutor could have said well, they’ve been punished enough [by the university]; that’s a fair argument. You could argue it’s overkill for the prosecutor to come in, but that doesn’t make it illegal for the prosecutor to decide otherwise.

Does the fact that this was not a spontaneous protest but a coordinated effort to stop the meeting give it more gravity from a legal standpoint?

It adds an extra charge and it goes to the prosecutor’s discretion. He could say, look [if] these are kids who were drunk and it was the spur of the moment, OK. [But] the fact that it wasn’t makes it more serious and [the prosecutor may feel he] needs to make statement about the way public meetings are conducted in California. It doesn’t mandate that he act nor does it prohibit him. It’s a factor to be considered.

Will we see more of these issues as organized protest against Israel spreads, particularly if there is an acquittal?

It’s clear that anti-Israel activities are not going to fade way; it’s clear that they are organized globally or more locally, [but] whether they will take the form of disruption remains to be seen. The fact that these people were disciplined with fairly serious sanctions, suspensions and entries on record … those are pretty serious sanctions for anyone to go on with an educational career. When you are applying to graduate schools, that’s not something that would make you more attractive as a candidate.

If there is an acquittal — it depends on the grounds. If the court says as a matter of law [that] shouting down a speaker is OK, that would be a very dangerous precedent. But it’s pretty inconceivable a court would hold that.

Solar Flares Could Affect GPS, Satellites, Power

2011-02-17T17:19:00.000-08:00

Electronics on Earth could be affected by solar flares that may be the biggest event since December 2006. Planes are being directed further south and some radio frequencies may be affected, but the overall impact is expected to be mild. In 1989, solar flares may have caused a power disruption, and a worse solar storm may arrive in 2013.

Read this story and others on NewsFactor Network.

If your GPS system's performance is a little spotty on Friday, don't call tech support. Blame the sun. Three waves of charged particles that erupted from its corona Sunday, Monday and Tuesday will hit the Earth in the next few days in what scientists are calling the biggest solar event since December 2006.

It won't be as bad as a 2003 flare-up that is the biggest solar eruption ever recorded by instruments, but planes are being directed further south than usual to avoid the North Pole, where the impact will be most severe. Northern areas may also be treated to a light show Thursday and Friday nights.

Sunny, with a Chance of Coronal Mass

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration reported Thursday on its daily space weather site that solar activity Thursday would be moderate, but over the next three days there could be "an increase to unsettled to active conditions, with a chance for minor storm periods expected late on day one into day two (18 February) because of the arrival of the coronal mass eruption." The forecast for day three, Feb. 19, is "quiet to active."

The warning of G1 or G2, out of a range through G5, is mild, said Joseph B. Gurman, project scientist for NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory. However, it could impact some radio frequencies, he said.

"Flares have excess high energy Relevant Products/Services radiation -- EUV, soft and hard X-ray, even gamma rays -- that can affect ionization and heating in the Earth outermost atmosphere, the thermosphere," Gurman told us. "That, in turn, affects the heights at which shortwave radio frequency signals are reflected, and sometimes that means disrupting RF communications, particularly near the geomagnetic poles."

Some disruptions were reported in China. Unlike the coronal mass that takes hours to travel the 95 million miles to Earth, electromagnetic radiation gets here in just eight minutes. It then takes the earth's atmosphere several hours to "relax" after the impact and return to normal.

Since satellite technology takes these routine events -- they average 175 per 11-year solar cycle -- into account, the impact on communication should be minimal.

"Typically you prepare to shift traffic to terrestrial resources and away from satellites," said Rob Enderle, principal technology analyst at the Enderle Group. "Generally it is the sun-facing satellites that are the most affected, but, in most cases, with a performance impact, the traffic can be shifted to better-shielded resources."

Danger To Power Cables

Gurman said the flares are the result of catastrophic changes in magnetic field in the sun's outer atmosphere.

"If they're ejected fast enough, CME's can drive shocks through the solar wind, and those shocks, threaded with twisted magnetic fields, provide efficient charged-particle acceleration --- enough to get particles going at speeds of half the speed of light or more," the scientist said.

In extreme cases, that energy can cause electric currents in our atmosphere and trapped energy that could interfere with or even damage satellites.

"The ring currents can also induce electric currents in the Earth and the oceans, particularly at high geomagnetic latitudes, that can damage copper cabling and interfere with electric power Relevant Products/Services transmission if the generating facilities do not have adequate warning to allow them slowly to adjust the ground phase of their large transformers," Gurman said.

In 1989, solar flares are believed to have caused a nine-hour power disruption in Quebec.

The Los Angeles Times reported that NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer satellite can give researchers and industries a 30-minute warning before coronal mass ejections strike.

We may be in for a worse storm in 2013, when the sun's 11-year cycle of activity is due to crest.

Rambam Hospital Prepares For Worst, Hopes For Best

2011-02-17T02:35:00.000-08:00

Haifa medical center building underground ER in case of war,
even as it treats Arabs from outside Israel.

Read this article and others on The Jewish Week's site.

The Rambam Health Care Campus is the largest hospital in northern Israel with 36 departments, 1,000 beds, nine institutes and six laboratories. But there’s more to the 73-year-old institution, founded by the British, than what’s on the surface.

In October the hospital, located just outside Haifa, began construction on a massive underground emergency room, the first in Israel and, according to Rambam officials, the largest in the world, with a three-level parking garage that can be quickly converted into a 2,000-bed hospital. In the event of a large-scale emergency, such as a chemical or biological attack, the sealed subterranean ER will have enough water, oxygen power and supplies to sustain itself for three days. The center is to be completed by the end of 2012.

The center reflects the growing concern in Israel not only of an attack from a hostile government, such as Iran, but also of a potential renewed conflict with Hezbollah forces, who rained destruction down on northern Israel in the summer of 2006, and is believed to have been busy re-arming since.

“You can’t predict what will happen in terms of the Middle East and Rambam is in the center of those who could be under attack,” said the hospital’s CEO and director general, Dr. Rafael Beyar. “There are small underground facilities but nothing of this magnitude. This is a regional solution.”

The $80 million price tag will be shared by the government and private donors, including a $17 million gift from shipping tycoon Sammy Ofer, who has also donated an additional $8 million to modernize existing departments at the hospital.

In an interview from Israel, Beyar notes that the hospital’s location has made it a nerve center for trauma cases in the region, from standard accidents and the Hezbollah shelling aftermath to the recent deadly Carmel forest fires. During that emergency the hospital set up a mass casualty trauma center expecting an influx, but in the end saw only four patients as most of the casualties, from a bus carrying volunteers that was engulfed, died at the scene.

But even as it gears up for a doomsday scenario, the hospital is also doing its part for a better future.

Rambam is a major academic center for new doctors, with the affiliated Technion Institute’s medical school on the campus. “It’s very high-tech oriented, and much research goes regarding stem cells, biomedical technology,” said Beyar.

And the center also treats a large number of Arab patients from outside Israel. “We get quite a lot of humanitarian cases, such as cancer surgery and bone marrow transplants,” said Beyar. “We have had patients from almost all our neighboring countries. Just today I visited a prominent person from one of the Emirates who was here for cardiac surgery.”

He adds that 20 percent of the staff at Rambam are local Arabs. “There is great harmony at the hospital, [with staff] working to save lives.”

In addition to the emergency center, Rambam is building above ground, too, with a children’s hospital, cardiovascular and cancer centers and a research tower for biomedical technology under way. The children’s hospital is sponsored by a $20 million gift from the Rappaport family of Geneva, and the oncology center by the Fishman family of Toronto.

“We are focusing on our research on cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular and other medicine, not only on trauma, although that is, unfortunately, always part of our lives,” said Beyar.

NFN: Google's One Pass Offers Content for Less Than Apple

2011-02-16T14:43:00.000-08:00

Publishers may prefer Google's One Pass subscription service, which only takes 10 percent of payments, vs 30 percent for Apple's App Store subscriptions. Besides cost, Apple's strict rules for App Store subscriptions have angered publishers. But an analyst pointed out that Apple sells content and publishers will "cry all the way" to the bank.

Read this article and others on NewsFactor.com

In what looked like a case of digital good cop, bad cop, Google on Wednesday announced a payment service for digital content that seems more publisher-friendly than Apple's heavy-handed, high-commission terms for its App Store subscriptions.
Google's One Pass service, aimed primarily at web sites, will allow publishers "to customize how and when they charge for content while experimenting with different models to see what works best for them," wrote Lee Shirani, director of business product management at Google Commerce on the company's blog.

Twenty Percent Less

Google will keep only 10 percent of payments made through its Google Checkout system that users access by signing in through Gmail accounts. One Pass was announced by Google CEO Eric Schmidt at Humboldt University in Berlin, where he was joined by several German publishers.

One Pass will cover subscriptions, metered access, free content, or single articles from publishers' web sites or apps.

That's in contrast to Apple's announcement requiring publishers who provide content via its iOS platform on iPhones, iPads or the iPod touch to offer access only through the App Store, rather than diverting to an outside site. Apple will collect a 30 percent fee from each transaction.

That requirement also gives Apple access to subscriber information for its own marketing , an increasingly valuable asset as the mobile advertising industry matures.

Apple's rules don't prevent publishers from offering independent access so long as there is a conduit via Apple at the same price or lower.

Music subscription service Rhapsody, which says it has 750,000 subscribers, cried foul the loudest with President John Irwin calling that requirement "economically untenable." "The bottom line is we would not be able to offer our service through the iTunes store if subjected to Apple's 30 percent monthly fee vs a typical 2.5 percent credit-card fee," he said.

Top Sales Rep

Industry analyst Gerry Purdy of Mobiletrax said that while developers and publishers will understandably be irritated by Apple's new policy, they would have to acknowledge that Apple generates more business for them.

"They'll cry all the way down to the bank to make their deposits," Purdy said. "Apple isn't saying every sale you make, you have to pay us; they are saying go ahead and make your own sales, but if you do, you have to have an app because we want to add to the sales volume."

Purdy said the growing ubiquity of iOS on devices like the iPad, 14 million of which were sold last year, essentially makes Apple one of the world's leading sales representatives for publishers.

"A publisher can say 'I've never paid more than a 15 percent commission,' but Apple can say 'I'm the best, you have to pay more,'" Purdy said.

NFN: iPhone 5 May Have Larger Screen, Suppliers Say

2011-02-16T08:46:00.000-08:00

Apple suppliers in Taiwan are reporting that Apple's iPhone 5 will have a screen about a half-inch bigger than the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4. With a four-inch screen, the iPhone 5 might bridge the gap between the iPhone and Apple's 9.7-inch iPad. iPhone rivals Samsung and Motorola have larger screens for games and videos.

Read this article and others on NewsFactor.com

Apple's iPhone lineup may soon look a lot like its iPod lineup, with sizes to fit your taste. Last week came news of a cheaper, smaller iPhone that some are calling the iPhone nano, and as the refresh rumor mill shifts into high gear, there's speculation that his summer's fifth-generation iPhone will give consumers an extra half-inch of display.
Taiwan-based DigiTimes, which bases its reports on leaks from "upstream component suppliers," said the iPhone will have a four-inch touchscreen, which would be the first bump-up in real estate since the iPhone's 2007 debut.
Mini-iPad?
The report suggested that by increasing the screen size, Apple would bridge the gap between its iPad tablet and the iPhone.
"The component suppliers noted that the production lines for Apple's next-generation iPhone have begun testing, and Apple is interested in expanding the screen size to four inches to support the tablet PC market, as the vendor only has a 9.7-inch iPad in the market," DigiTimes said, adding that Dell has reclassified its five-inch Streak as a super smartphone rather than a tablet.
A four-inch display would distinguish the newcomer from the current iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, which have 3.5-inch displays even as manufacturers like Samsung and Motorola have introduced larger screens on devices like the EVO and Droid X. The more generous displays make it easier to play games or watch videos.
Bloomberg News last week said Apple was readying a one-third smaller iPhone to better compete with cheaper phones that are popular in Europe and Asia.
Apple hasn't commented on any of this, as the company is typically silent on products until their launch date.
Gartner Research wireless analyst Ken Dulaney said a bigger screen would allow more opportunity for the iPhone to evolve, as opposed to trying to improve the resolution again as Apple did with the Retina display in the iPhone 4. The Retina display, so named because it supposedly replicates the maximum resolution of the human eye, is four times sharper than the iPhone 3GS, 960x640 pixels, or 326 pixels per inch, with an 800-to-one contrast ratio.
Control Zone?
"No one knows for sure" what size the screen will be, Dulaney said. "But it would be logical to move to a four-inch screen because they have said with the Retina screen that it is the highest resolution that the eye can see. So more resolution wouldn't make sense. Four inches is a common size; 3.7 is OK, too."
More screen space could also give the iPhone a dedicated touchscreen control area.
"So instead of the physical button at the bottom, they could put it in part of the screen at the bottom and it could change based on the context of the application," Dulaney suggested.

NYJW: Egypt, Iran Top Pols’ Concerns At JCRC Breakfast

2011-02-16T08:18:00.000-08:00

Reason for optimism in post-Mubarak era, says Schumer, at congressional breakfast; Tehran nuclear ambitions worry N.Y. delegation.

Read this article and others on The Jewish Week's Web site.

The uncertain future of Israel’s powerful neighbor dominated the speeches at Sunday’s annual congressional breakfast sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council, held less than 48 hours after the demise of Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade reign over Egypt.

The speakers included both of New York’s senators and the majority of downstate New York’s delegation to the House, and most were cautiously optimistic that extremist forces would not take hold as the country’s military tries to assemble a new government.

“The Muslim Brotherhood is not al Qaeda,” said Rep. Gary Ackerman, a Democrat who represents parts of Queens and Long Island. “But make no mistake about it, they are just as dedicated to the destruction of Israel. The good news is they are not as popular.”

New York’s senior senator, Charles Schumer, said that at this crossroads, the Egyptian people have two models from which to choose: Indonesia, where popular demonstrations led to the resignation of the president, Suharto, in 1998, and ushered in an era of political reform; and Iran, where the downfall of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1980 led to a tyrannical theocracy hostile to the West and Israel.

There is a reasonable path for a good outcome,” said Schumer. “The typical person on the street is not fundamentalist. They may not like Israel but it’s not at the top of their list.

“Iran is also a country where the people are rather secular [like Egypt]. A militant Egypt and Iran, the two biggest countries in the area, would be a disaster. Our government must do everything to guard against that.”

Indonesia, he said, “is basically democratic, basically secular, a possible model. In some sense [Egypt] is more likely to go down the path of Indonesia than Iran. But, being Jewish, I worry … ”

Without speculating on its origin, Schumer expressed gratitude for the work of the so-called Stuxnet computer virus believed to have severely damaged Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

“Not only did it destroy centrifuges, but it appeared on the computer screens that everything was OK, so they didn’t even know for long periods of time the virus was spreading,” Schumer said. That damage, he said, creates some “breathing room” that together with sanctions could help weaken Iran’s regime while putting off its nuclear capability for at least two years.

The New York Times recently presented evidence that the virus originated in Israel, but the country’s leaders have not commented. Rep. Jerrold Nadler of Manhattan also mentioned Stuxnet, saying the cyber attack accomplished a result similar to a direct military attack but without bloodshed.

“If [Israel or the U.S. militarily] attack Iran the first thing that would happen is 40,000 missiles would be launched at Israel by Hezbollah,” said Nadler. “This virus delayed [Iran’s] nuclear ambition at least two or three years without any casualties in Israel or anywhere else. It’s a covert war.”

Nadler also mentioned “a pattern of Iran’s nuclear scientists falling off a cliff.”

New York’s junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, also a Democrat, said she would introduce a bipartisan bill this week to make it more difficult for U.S. companies to do business with Iran by requiring them to disclose any investments in Iran that are subject to U.S. sanctions in their quarterly and annual reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission. A provision in the bill would also require U.S. bans to report sanctionable activities by affiliated banks abroad. The bill is co-sponsored by Illinois Republican Sen. Mark Kirk and Reps. Ted Deutch, Democrat of Florida, and Dan Burton, Republican of Indiana, in the House.

Last year President Barack Obama signed a bill sponsored by Gillibrand and others that imposes penalties on companies that do business with Iran’s energy sector.

“Iran comprises an existential threat not just to Israel but to the U.S., too,” said Gillibrand. “Sanctions clearly have had an effect. Gas prices [in Iran] have gone up, banks have shut down.”

Gillibrand also called for “holding the UN more accountable” and said it should not participate in the Durban 3 World Conference Against Racism in New York in September. The prior conferences, she said, gave participants “a permission slip to be an anti-Semite” because of criticism against Israel that many decried as disproportionate to criticism of Arab countries.

Looking ahead to the Palestine Authority elections scheduled for July — called in reaction to the Egypt situation — Gillibrand said, “We have to make sure it doesn’t become a platform for Hamas. There have to be calls for moderation, economic growth and direct negotiations [with Israel], no intermediaries.”

Several speakers addressed the call for elimination of foreign aid emanating from some Republicans, including Tea Party activist freshman Rand Paul of Kentucky.

“We have to make sure Israel has the military edge over its neighbors,” said Gillibrand. After his remarks, Schumer said he was also concerned about the anti-aid push. “If they can do it to other countries they can do it to Israel,” Schumer said.

The only Republican official to attend the event, freshman Rep. Michael Grimm, said he sent a letter to the majority leadership saying he would vote against any bill reducing aid to Israel. “I have been named one of the co-chairs of the Republican Israel Caucus,” said Grimm, whose district includes all of Staten Island and part of Brooklyn. “Although there is an R before my name, I stand firmly with the sovereign Jewish state of Israel.”

In her remarks, Rep. Nita Lowey, a Westchester Democrat, said it was “absolutely essential” that the U.S. maintain military and economic aid to Egypt. “The relationship is too important. No one knows what’s going to happen next.” Citing former Republican President George W. Bush in a bipartisan gesture, Lowey said national security should be viewed in his terms of “defense, diplomacy and development.”

But Rep. Anthony Weiner said he supported withholding any aid, especially military, to countries that are hostile to Israel or may have links to terrorism.

“Seventy percent of [Egypt’s] aid is military, which is a mystery to me,” said Weiner, a Democrat who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens. “Who is their natural enemy there? We should start with Saudi Arabia; they shouldn’t get a dime, a shekel, whatever until they start acting like an ally.” He said al Qaeda ringleader Osama bin Laden “was paid by the Saudis to leave them alone.”

Later in his speech, Weiner referred to the targeting of Iranian nuclear scientists — he didn’t say by whom — and put his thumbs up. “I like it. I’m in favor of that.”

Ackerman used the opportunity to reiterate an earlier denunciation of J Street, the Israel lobbying group that supports the Obama administration’s approach to the peace process. Last month Ackerman, who was endorsed by J Street in his November re-election campaign, blasted the group for asking the president not to veto a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlement building.

“We often hear about the Arab street,” Ackerman said. “There is also a Jewish street. It’s a wide street, a highway. We must never lose sight of the fact that there is room for diversity, every issue should be discussed, right lane, left lane, center lane … But I will not partner with those people who delegitimize the state of Israel, who are going the wrong way on the highway.”

In the concluding remarks, Queens-based Rep. Gregory Meeks attacked what he said was a perception that African American elected officials, such as himself, were “wavering” on Israel support.

“It’s not true,” he said. “We are with you because it’s the right thing to do.”

He said the peaceful protests in Egypt reminded him of the marches against Jim Crow laws when he was a child in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and that just as Jews stood with black leaders during the civil rights struggle, “We will stand with you until we have changed the Middle East.”

Oh, What A (Bad) Feeling

2010-02-04T08:42:00.000-08:00

Remember those old Toyota commercials from the 80s that showed new owners jumping for joy as they got the keys? “Oh what a feeling, to own a Toyota!” was the jingle.

The company could use a little of that exuberance now as they weather the kind of public relations nightmare that could be disastrous in this economy. And yet, four days or so into the crisis over sticking accelerators, I have yet to see the face of any Toyota executive or spokesman on TV or hear their voices on the radio. And I consume probably more media hours than the average person and the average car buyer.

You don’t have to be a PR mogul to see the company isn’t handling this well.

I’ve had a Toyota Siena for eight years now, with no regrets. I have never had a mechanical problem, although some non-essential parts have had to be replaced, and I consistently have a low tire pressure light erroneously illuminated on the dash. There is also a problem with an oxygen sensor I will eventually have to fix. But eight years without ever turning the key to no response, or getting stuck on the highway has given me a pretty good feeling to own a Toyota.

It would be unfortunate if the tanking economy has forced the company to cut corners on production, design or materials. But the accelerator problem seems easy enough to fix and luckily it hasn’t led to any accidents.

So why is it only dealers who are on the air standing behind Toyota’s cars?

Here's Andy Borowitz's shot at Toyota: The cup holders still work: www.theborowitzreport.com

There's No 'I' In NBC

2010-01-13T13:25:00.001-08:00

Just in time for the remake of "Clash Of The Titans" comes the late night TV version, with Jay Leno butting his enormous head against Conan O'Brien's famously weird coiffure for the coveted 11:35 p.m. turf.

NBC is now the den mother of the mother of all sibling rivalries. The peacock thought it had all this worked out four years ago, trying to avoid the temper tantrum Dave Letterman threw in 1993 when he stormed off to CBS and, somehow, became the unlikely grumpy, horny king of the time slot.

But the deal to keep Conan, and his free-spending, fun-loving demographic off another network by handing over Johnny Carson's crown while it was still warm from Leno's head was built on a foundation of quicksand.

The problem for both Leno and Conan, who have been at their respective shticks since the early 90s, is that no one gives a damn when there are better options available. Who wants to see Leno awkwardly salivate over Naomi Watts and drop embarrassing Freudian slips in an interview when they can watch David Caruso whip off his sunglasses and make witty comments over the latest murder victim and cue the Who music, or Dr. Grey choose between McDreamy and McSteamy? And who wants to see Conan do that lame fake interview with the real celebrity face and dubbed moving mouth, or chat with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog when there is still non-infomercial competition, like Letterman or Nightline?

Both these guys knew going into their deal that there were risks involved, and yet both are whining like the ball was taken away inches away from the end zone. At least Conan had the humility to say in his (under)statement that "in a world with real problems, I've been absurdly lucky." Something tells me that, just before the repo man arrives at his door, some kind of salvation will arrive.

Conan delights in singing "I'm a-gonna go to hell when I die" after skewering the likes of Paris Hilton in his monologue, and Jay likes to patrol the streets of Hollywood looking for morons he can seem smarter than in his "Jaywalking" segments. So clearly it's too much to expect magnanimity from a pair of egomaniacs. NBC can rule out their taking one for the team and turning the clock back to the old post-prime time lineup. Instead they may both end up on other networks.

And NBC will end up with a bigger cascade failure than the one they tried to avoid in 2005.

Reid All About It

2010-01-09T15:11:00.001-08:00

It seems that way back in the 2008 presidential race, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had a strange way of talking up Barack Obama's qualifications. "He's light skinned" and "doesn't have a Negro dialect unless he wants one," the Nevada-based powerbroker would say in private conversations.

We know this now because it has been revealed in a new book about the campaign by Jon Heilman and David Halperin, "Game Change. Reid doesn't dispute the comments attributed to him, and in fact has apologized directly to the president for it. The president talked up Reid's long commitment to civil rights in his statement and said he accepted the apology "without question."

All well and good, but it's hard not to wonder how long these two reporters have known about these comments and whether they kept it under wraps until their book was finished. That's their right, but as Mike Flynn points out in this great Breitbart Report post, would they have done the same if the remarks were made by a Republican?

Racial controversies involving conservatives tend to have a longer shelf life. Remember when Trent Lott pined away for the age of segregation at Strom Thurmond's birthday party? Contrast that flap to Joe Biden suggesting that Obama stood out from other black politicians because he was "clean." The price he paid for that gaffe was to become vice president of the United States.

On Sunday, the first black chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, not only didn't accept Reid's apology but said the gaffe was career-ending. "Either he's going to retire or I'm going to retire him in November, but either way he won't be the leader in January," said Steele, saying that Reid was getting off easy if Trent Lott's fate was the established standard.

Pundits will parse the difference, noting that lamenting the end of segregation isn't in the same universe as stupidly assessing a candidate's blackness. Where this controversy will lead us remains to be seen, but it will surely raise some questions and hopefully offer some insights into why the Democratic party remains the overwhelming choice of people of color, and why that shows no sign of changing soon.

Another Warning Against Marrying Politicians

2009-07-01T04:46:00.001-07:00

How many more must end up like Silda Wall Spitzer, Elizabeth Edwards and Jenny Sanford before it becomes clear to single American women: Steer clear of politicians, or any guy who even talks about running for office.
Do more of these men cheat today? Of course not. They're getting caught more. Either they're getting dumber or it has just become too difficult in today's media age to explain a week-long gap in a governor's schedule with a lame hiking excuse. They are not all cheaters, but too many are not to se a trend.
Some say power is an aphrodisiac. I think they've got it backwards. It's primarily men with outsized egos, who narcissistically crave affection and self-validation, who are drawn to politics. Once they've got that validation from voters, they'll seek it from other sources, and for too many, one woman cannot provide an ample supply. Such men suffer from a double hubris: the need to place their own needs ahead of others, coupled with the arrogance to believe they'll never be caught.

Sure you can gain a lot of strength from being a woman scorned, as Hillary did. But who needs it?
So marry a doctor, a lawyer, an architect, a cowboy or a flair pin salesman. There's no guarantee he won't cheat. But at least if he does you won't end up with camera crews on your front lawn, or standing by in humiliation while your guy reads his apology at a press conference.

Beware The Hubris Trap

2009-06-18T10:16:00.000-07:00

President Obama was typically pleased with himself when he displayed the ability to swat a fly while giving an interview. "That was pretty impressive, wasn’t it?" he asked his interviewer while inviting the cameraman to film his kill.
The President has been pleased with himself a lot lately, which he has good reason to be. He’s a highly accomplished man who has earned his place in history, at a very young age, and is enjoying great popularity at the most challenging job in the world.
While it’s natural to enjoy the power and trappings of the office, the non-stop celebrity being perhaps the biggest perk, Obama should do more to embrace the stature of the presidency rather than try to recast the commander and chief as an ordinary Joe who goes out for hamburgers and dates with his wife in Manhattan, hands school notes to little girls and talks to world leaders with his feet on the desk in the Oval Office.
Putting the Middle East peace process on the fast track shows fortitude and confidence, as does the President’s economic policies and initiatives such as health care reform. An activist, intelligent president surrounded by competent advisors and staff can get a lot done in four years.
But he must beware the hubris factor that comes naturally to leaders, especially when they sail into office as smoothly as he did. George W. Bush, elected by a hair, thought he’d have the conflict in Iraq wrapped up in a few short months. He became far less bold when that failure cut him down to size. With his popularity surplus, there seems to be no limit to Obama’s ambition, which means that the feet on his desk may not be as well planted on the ground as they should be.
The nuclear crises in Iran and North Korea will surely put the Obama administration to its biggest test. The president needs to know which solutions are realistic, and steer clear of those that will only have looked like great ideas in the history books.
Congratulations on that fly, Mr. President. Now be careful of the ones in the ointment.

Is Hatred A Disease?

2009-06-18T10:05:00.000-07:00

If there is a stereotype about white supremacists, James von Brunn doesn’t fit it.
We often see them depicted in popular culture as uneducated, perhaps illiterate people who drive pick-up trucks, live in the south and work at blue-collar jobs. They may live on farms or ranches, misinterpreting the Bible and gathering at secret Klan rallies or Nazi boot camps.
Von Brunn, who is accused of storming the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum last week and killing a guard, is none of these things. He was born in St. Louis and graduated from Washington University in 1943 with a degree in journalism. He served in the Naval Reserve and reportedly worked for a Madison Avenue advertising firm in New York for a while and became a talented artist through night-time painting classes.
We often tell ourselves that education is the cure for bigotry. But von Brunn’s college degree didn’t stop him from authoring a long screed about a Jewish plot to destroy the white gene pool, or curtail his enthusiasm for Holocaust denial, a cause that redefines stubborn ignorance. Instead, his hate percolated well into his senior years until he was compelled to literally take up arms for his warped cause.
The only explanation, if there is one, is a sustained, diseased state of mind that was as ultimately incurable as it was debilitating.
“His views consumed him, and in doing so, not only destroyed his life, but destroyed our family and ruined our lives as well," von Brunn’s son, Erik, wrote in a statement aired by ABC News.
It would be far easier to accept stereotypes about where dangerous bigots live and what they look like, than to come to terms with the fact that more James von Brunn's may be working in the cubicle next to us, or living in the house next door, suffering from a dangerous disease with no cure.

Missing

2009-06-02T10:30:00.000-07:00

"The Fate Of Israel's MIAs Says Much About Peace Hopes." There's no doubt we're on a faster track toward another Israeli-Palestinian agreement than we have been in more than a decade. The White House files have been dusted off, updated and presented to a president who, unlike his predecessor, has enough self-confidence to take on this formidable task.

In holding Benjamin Netanyahu's feet to the fire over settlement expansion, President Obama is clearly trying to regain Washington's lost "honest broker" status among the Palestinians. Since carte blanche to Fatah and Hamas will quickly doom the process, he should work quickly to dispel that notion.

While the audacity of hope is a fine thing, hope of an eventual agreement between Arabs and Israelis requres faith that, one day, everyone involved will act in their self-interest to enjoy the dividends of peace.

But it's hard to see a significant trend in that direction among Palestinians. Their leadership still oscillates between doing little to stop terror, doing nothing, and actively participating, as in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

The rocket attacks that increased in vehemence after Israel ended nearly 40 years of occupation there defy rationale, even in view of a long-term goal to destroy Israel, weakening as it does the international case that the Palestinians can disengage from the conflict and work toward coexistence, and bolstering the argument by Israelis and their supporters that a full West Bank withdrawal will bring much of the same.

These attacks are encouraged and enabled by Iranian and Syrian operatives, who can at least be said to act in their own self-interest: Fueling the conflict in Israel shores up the regimes in those countries, and weakens the object of their paranoia.

Another reason to question the ability (forget the will) of Israel’s enemies to give up the fight is the very painful history of missing Israeli soldiers. Some, captured during the war in Lebanon that began in 1982, have been unheard from for the better part of 30 years. More recently, Gilad Shalit has been held by Hamas, which actively negotiates for his release, for more than two years since he was captured near Gaza. There is no recent proof that he’s alive.

Given the willingness of the Israeli government to do almost anything to get them back, even wading into ethically murky waters by trading hundreds of terrorists, it is in the self-interest of the militant captors to keep these men healthy and eventually make a deal, of which they will almost certainly get the longer end of the stick.

But not one of these soldiers has ever been released alive. Elchanan Tennenbaum, an Israeli businessman, suspected drug dealer and retired colonel, is the only recent Israeli to be released alive in a prisoner swap with Arab captors, at the cost 435 prisoners from Israeli jails.

The ugly truth is that the life expectancy of an Israeli, particularly an active soldier, in a terrorist jail is bound to be brutally short, and their fate is almost unbearable to ponder. In October, 2000, a BBC camera crew captured the horrific fate of two IDF soldiers when a mob stormed the Ramallah police station where they were being held and beat and stabbed them to death. Some of the rioters proudly displayed their blood-soaked hands for the cameras.

Last July, Hezbollah militants turned over the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser or Eldad Regev, who were captured nearly two years earlier in a raid specifically intended to gain Israeli prisoners. The ransom was five live terrorists and nearly 200 bodies. We may never know how long they were held before they were murdered. But we are also left to wonder what kind of better deal their captors’ could have made in exchange for two healthy soldiers, if their captors were capable of acting in their self-interest.

I met Goldwasser’s parents in the summer of 2007, about a year into their ordeal. Against hope, his mother Mickey explained how she was keeping a scrapbook of all the efforts on his behalf to present to him on his return. In the most moving terms, she spoke about how she worried about her son being kept clean and fed.

I also had a chance, long ago, to meet Yona Baumel, whose son, Zachary, was captured in Lebanon with his tank crew in 1982. About 23 years into his unspeakable ordeal, Mr. Baumel was still confident, too, that Zachary was being held alive, although it made no sense, in the absence of a deal in that time period, that his captors were still sustaining him.

As an added measure of cruelty, those who capture Israeli soldiers routinely, stubbornly refuse to give details about their fate, evidently to prolong the anguish of the soldiers’ loved ones.
Yona Baumel died last week at 81, without any confirmation of his son’s likely fate. If he had to die, perhaps it was merciful that Yona didn’t have to suffer one last time through what had to be two painful dates: The June 11 anniversary of Zachary’s capture, followed shortly by Father’s Day.

Fully renouncing hostility against Israel would mean new economic ties for the Palestinians, increased international and US aid, more infrastructure and development and an opportunity for a new beginning. But the question remains whether enough of them can keep their eye on that prize.

Few Israelis hide their desire to have a large, spacious homeland that might stretch from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, from the Red Sea to the Golan, with a Jewish majority. But their leaders have put aside that dream to act in their long-term self-interest, holding out hope that the other side of the equation can do the same one day .

All You Need To Know About "Star Trek XI: The Search For A New Audience"

2009-05-11T04:53:00.000-07:00

WARNING: SPOILERS.

A federation starship, the USS Kelvin is minding its own business, as federation starships generally do, prime directive and all that, when the time-traveling Romulan Nero materializes in a massive, converted mining ship.

Do not confuse this menacing rogue Romulan who is out to destroy Earth with Shinzon, the menacing rogue Romulan who is out to destroy Earth in "Star Trek: Nemesis," the last Star Trek film, in 2002. The writers and director of the latest film are not necessarily fans of the franchise, so they may have never seen the other movies. This is probably just a coincidence.

As fate would have it, Nero has stumbled upon the ship carrying the parents of the future Captain Kirk, and just in time for the arrival of the newborn. We don't know why a woman that pregnant is on board the ship in the first place, but there's little time to wonder as the attack unfolds.

The massive Romulan ship, which has the power to obliterate the federation ship, instead punches holes in the Kelvin until the captain flies over to negotiate. But there's nothing to talk about because the doomed captain doesn't have what Nero wants, the location of a peculiar ship that looks like a hummingbird. So Nero punches more holes in the Kelvin, giving the crew enough time to escape. Fortunately, the Kelvin has more shuttlecraft aboard than the Titanic had lifeboats so everyone makes it off except the new captain, George Kirk, and the extras who had to fly across the hallway in the explosions or get sucked out into space.

George's wife has a lightning-fast labor (must be all the stress) enabling the new arrival to emerge at the precise moment George is about to sacrifice himself to save his crew. This way the couple can name the child together and establish that the newborn is the future Captain Kirk. The destruction of the ship is on hold while this happens.

Next, we get a brief visit to the Planet Vulcan, where Spock has been teased 35 previous times by his classmates in an attempt to get him to blow his stack and show he’s not as cold and stoic as a good Vulcan should be. Evidently, you can say what you want about him but if you call his human mother a whore, we soon learn, he’ll morph into the Vulcan Volcano.

The mother in question is Winona Ryder, an actress only about 10 years older than Zachary Quinto, who plays Spock. The studio probably got her cheap because her career went south after that shoplifting bust. Spock gets a lecture from his dad that he has to work harder to keep his cool. But when the stuffy college admissions board disses his intermarried family again, Spock tells them to shove it.

Later, although it is established that James Tiberias Kirk is growing up in Iowa, where the young man likes to drive classic cars with built-in Nokia communicators off cliffs, he somehow ends up in a bar where Starfleet cadets hang out, although Starfleet Academy is hundreds of miles away in San Francisco. Must be some great beer.

In this bar he encounters Lt. Uhura and some thuggish cadets, and when he gets in trouble in the obligatory barfight scene, Captain Christopher Pike, who wrote his dissertation on Kirk’s father, somehow also turns up in Iowa to get him out of trouble and urge him to join Starfleet. Kirk clears his schedule of car wrecking and bar fighting and obliges, hopping on a shuttle to San Francisco where he meets Leonard McCoy, presumably not yet a doctor, who is afraid of getting airsick. He tells Kirk how his ex-wife took everything, "except my bones," and a nickname is born.

Later, Cadet Kirk has a fling with a green-skinned cadet who turns out to be Uhura's roommate, and he gets to see Uhura in her underwear while hiding under the bed. Maybe that’s why Uhura's so pissed at him later on when Kirk is taking the Kobayashi Maru strategy simulation and she, while also a cadet, is one of the people running the simulation. Dr. McCoy is also part of the simulation, ostensibly to produce a cure for Klingons.

The simulation is designed by Spock. Evidently there are very few people in Starfleet, because everywhere Kirk goes he keeps running into the same four people: McCoy, Uhura, Spock and Captain Pike, as well as the lout who pummeled him in the Iowa bar, all of whom will end up at his side when he eventually finds his way aboard the Enterprise.

Spock is pissed that Kirk reprogrammed the simulation to make it winnable, a feat of which he will many years later boast in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.” Spock wants Kirk kicked out of school but there’s no time because Vulcan is now being attacked by Nero.

The cadets are hastily called into action with a lot of other crews, but Kirk can’t come because he’s being given a time out. McCoy injects Krik with a bacteria specimen that happens to be lying around in the starship hangar, then fools a dim-witted security guard into letting him bring Kirk aboard the ship, despite the fact the he is showing symptoms of a contagious disease.

Now we get to meet the new Chekov and Sulu, with Anton Yelchin doing such an over the top Chekov impression laden with "Wulcans" it seems like a parody. After Sulu forgets to switch off the parking brake on the way out of spacedock, the ship is under way on its maiden voyage.

Even while simultaneously battling McCoy's disease and the weak script Kirk figures out that they are headed into a trap, which leaves Captain Pike so impressed that Kirk’s not only off suspension but now second in command of the ship, under Spock. All the other ships have been destroyed. Captain Pike orders Kirk and Sulu to go skydiving from space to disable Nero's huge drill that’s cutting a hole in Vulcan.

Nero apparently has the ability to travel through time and to turn planets into black holes, yet somehow was unable to stop his own planet from being destroyed by a supernova in the distant future. Instead, it was outsourced to Future Spock, the federation ambassador to Romulus, who set out to inject cooling red matter into the supernova, but he missed it by that much, so Nero vowed to not only destroy Spock but the entire federation. No good deed goes unpunished is a weak revenge motive, but that's the least of this movie's problems.

Kirk and Sulu manage not to be burnt up in Vulcan’s atmosphere as they descend from space at thousands of miles and hour and open their parachutes to land on target. The third member of their team is sacrificed by the writers just to show that the feat wasn’t entirely a cakewalk.

Sulu, who volunteered for the mission by boasting that he knew how to fence (as the original character demonstrates in a shirtless manic frolic in the episode “The Naked Now”), produces a sword from somewhere in his streamlined jumpsuit. Rather than fence, Sulu can do Ninja and Samurai tricks, complete with backward jumps, as he goes all Kill Bill on the bad guys, leaving us to wonder why there are people aboard a space drill lowered into the atmosphere.

Kirk and Sulu knock out the drill wth their phasers, leaving us to wonder why the Enterprise didn't just fire its phasers, sparing all the aerial acrobatics. But it's too late to save Vulcan, which turns into a giant sinkhole, much like the plot.

Spock beams down to save his parents, who are conveniently gathered with the most important elders of Vulcan and saves them all, except for Winona. Before she can say "Betelguese," she get sucked into a black hole, just like her career. (Hey, reality bites).

Meanwhile, Captain Pike has been taken prisoner, and is being held in a bathtub, which leads us to think he’s about to be waterboarded. Instead, Nero comes up with a lamer version of the disgusting bug that Ricardo Montalban put in Chekov’s ear in ST:2. Only this one is taken orally. We’re not really sure what it does, just that it’s gross.

Back on the ship, Spock is now in charge, but he and Kirk can’t stop bickering. Kirk wants to go after Nero while Spock wants to take some time to stop and think about things.

Uhura is so sorry for Spock that she stops the elevator and offers him sexual favors to get his mind off his grief. Not only isn’t this scene hot, it’s awkward because it comes out of nowhere, (with zero previous interaction between the two) not to mention a huge setback to the strengths of the only woman with a speaking role on the Enterprise crew. (Zoe Saldana’s character is evidently a cost-effective amalgam of Uhura, who was romantically attached to no one, and Nurse Chapel, who openly pined for Spock in the series.) Rather than cite Starfleet regulations about sexual liaisons between a commanding officer and subordinates, Spock nobly says all he wants is for people to keep on doing their jobs well.

When Kirk and Spock finally mix it up, Spock uses the Vulcan neck pinch, then illogially ejects him from the ship, rather than confining him to quarters or tossing him in the brig. Luckily, Kirk’s escape pod not only lands on a planet where Future Spock has been marooned by Nero to watch his planet die, but he lands within walking distance of his future friend, and arrives there just in time for the senior-citizen Vulcan to ward off a massive, fierce, hungry monster with only a torch.

The Original Series Spock would be running the numbers in that computer-like brain of his on the odds against all this incredible luck. Instead, they move on to the next great stroke of providence. Not only is there a Starfleet base within walking distance (of which Spock has, for some reason, not yet chosen to avail himself), but the only human posted there is Montgomery Scott, the one man with the scientific ability to get them out of this mess with his untested theory about high-speed teleportation.

As some kind of disciplinary action for being too smart, Scotty has been banished to this wasteland with only a mutated Oompa Loompa for company. Scotty must have a hell of a long-distance carrier, because the uber-beaming to the long-gone, warp-speeding Enterprise works, almost flawlessly. (Though Scotty ends up in a surplus water park amusement that someone has seen fit to inexplicably install on the Enterprise).

On the advice of Future Spock, Kirk has to get command by goading Present Spock into showing emotion, which we have already seen is ridiculously easy. Kirk plays the mom card, Spock pummels him, then responsibly relieves himself of command. But Kirk is magnanimous, and still gives Spock a big role in the attack on Nero’s ship. As they leave, Spock says if he doesn’t make it, Kirk should tell Uhura … We’ll never know what awkward illogical profession of affection it is because Kirk assures him he’s coming back. He tells Sulu to wait for a strategic opportunity to attack, which enables the writers to build up suspense for a nick-of-time Enterprise reappearance.

By now, Nero is drilling into Earth. Since the rule in Star Trek films is that everything bad that happens on Earth will happen in San Francisco, the death beam hits right next to the Golden Gate Bridge as the remaining Starfleet cadets run for their lives, waiting for their friends to come to the rescue

Kirk and Spock beam aboard Nero’s ginormous death ship but, luckily, it’s just a short walk to the place where he has stowed Future Spock’s hummingbird spaceship complete with the dangerous, unstable red matter. It’s also a short walk to where Nero and his goons are. Young Kirk can't yet fight his way out of a paper bag (perhaps he rigged the computers in his judo courses too) but he gets lucky yet again mixing it up with a Romulan who lifts him up by his neck, leaving his hands free to grab the guy’s holstered gun. Spock quickly masters the controls of Future Spock's advanced spaceship and goes on the attack.

Turns out, Captain Pike is still alive and relatively healthy, and close enough for Kirk to rescue. They beam back to the Enterprise when it does that nick-of-time reappearance, complete with blazing, machine-gun-like phasers. Now Nero's ship is being pulled into the black hole.

Nero is still alive and Kirk is again magnanimous in victory. Foreshadowing his trademark compassion to ass-kicked enemies, he offers to pull the Romulan’s fat out of the fire, assuming he will now be able to trust him. Shove it, says Nero, and Kirk says have it your way. Spock agrees: No mercy for Winona's killer. The Enterprise ejects its warp core and detonates it to push itself out of the black hole.

Back at Starfleet, Kirk gets a medal and a promotion for his troubles, and command of the Enterprise, even though he hasn’t finished the academy. We see that Captain Pike didn’t get away completely unscathed from Nero’s Gitmo. He’s in a wheelchair. So when Kirk says “I relieve you, sir,” Pike can’t give the usual answer, “I stand relieved,” and instead says “I am relieved,” which at his point is how I felt because the film was almost over.

Although Spock is not in control of his emotions, getting passed over at the expense of a lesser qualified hothead doesn’t phase him much and he has no hard feelings as he runs into Nimoy-Spock in a hangar. They both agree to stay out of each other’s hair, avoiding the kind of tension between Shatner and Chris Pine, so they can both continue making money off this franchise in harmony and perpetuity.

Kirk takes command of the Enterprise and Scotty and the Oompa Loompa are now in charge in the engine room as they set course for the sequel.

One Story, Two Sad Endings

2009-02-02T10:40:00.000-08:00

I had known the truth for some time. But there was plausible denial.
Before there was Facebook, the way to answer "What ever happened to …" was to Google. Debby had a common last name. But when my search came up with a fund at a shul in the small Pennsylvania town where she grew up, the connection was unmistakable.
It’s rare for people other than millionaire philanthropists to have funds named after them while they are still alive. But not impossible.
It's close to 30 years since that last night of camp when we met. It hadn’t been a good summer, I didn’t make many friends. Debby came out of the blue and, in six or seven hours, made the whole trip worthwhile.
Although we spent the entire night talking, I can’t say I learned much about her. At 14, insights into the soul are rare, opinions and worldviews long from being formulated. When morning came we got on separate buses, hers to her Philadelphia suburb, mine to New York City. We vowed to pick up where we left off next summer, probably knowing deep down what the odds were.
The letters kept up for months, and there were occasional phone calls. When she came to New York with her family, I was out of town. I didn’t make it back to camp the next summer. We had some pointless fight, lost touch, and never saw each other again.
I recall a letter out of nowhere a few years later, awkwardly asking me what I was doing and whether I had a girlfriend. I didn’t, but for some forgotten reason never responded.
Twenty-eight years later the camp fund in her name made me worry, and wonder. I thought of calling the temple to ask, but didn’t have the nerve, ultimately convincing myself that the fund was set up by an adoring father to honor his daughter. I took comfort in the absence of the word memorial.
Then came Melissa, a voice from the past who found me on Facebook. We met that same night at camp, when the fading summer and looming bus-ride home erased all barriers of shyness and fueled a frenzy of eleventh hour acquaintances and address swapping. Melissa remembered Debby but hadn’t heard from her in years, she said at the time of initial contact.
Weeks later, another Facebook friendship with another lost campmate brought the awful truth home, and it arrived in my inbox immediately after.
Debby died in an accident, apparently struck by a car, probably just a few years after I had met her. I’ll never know how old she was, what she was doing at the time, or anything more than that vague epitaph. The acquaintance said he’d heard she had been going through a troubled time, but was getting her life back on track when tragedy struck.
Shortly after I heard the news, I found myself singing James Taylor's "Fire and Rain" to myself, the salient lyrics being "I always thought I’d see you, one more time again." Somehow I imagined one day we’d get in touch and get together, maybe with our spouses and kids, and laugh about juvenile naivete and innocence.
Rare is the marriage that blossoms from a relationship that began at 14. There was never any chance of anything rekindling between us, and 21 years ago, seven after my time with Debby, I met the woman who would become my wife and the mother of my children. There are, of course, no regrets.
And still, there is a sense of loss. If time, fate and circumstances prevent the seed of a relationship from blossoming, we like to think they are at least loving someone else, and perhaps we are a warm memory in their past.
Can you lose someone you never had? How much of a void can such a distant memory, no matter how cherished, leave?
There was a photo of us together, moments before we parted, the sleeplessness showing. I always looked at it sadly because of what was unknowable at the time: It was our last moment together.
The more cruel unknowable was that this girl who came out of the blue to brighten my life was doomed. When I close my eyes, I wonder if she died too quickly to know what happened to her, if she was alone when she died, or if she had a chance to say goodbye to her family. And if she was happy at the time.
The picture is in an album that disappeared somewhere in my parents’ house, and it’s painful to think that it, too, may be lost forever, leaving only the dim impression in my brain, and the speck of her face in a camp yearbook group shot, as proof that it ever happened.
Aside from Melissa, my old camp pen pal, there was no one to talk it over with. She suggested I reach out to Debby’s parents, tell her what their daughter once meant to me. I didn’t see anything productive that could come out of that.
Instead, I wrote out a check to the camp fund in her name, for more than I can afford, but less than a fitting tribute. Maybe it will help some14 year old boy go to camp, where a girl will come out of the blue to brighten his life.
And hopefully that story will have a happier ending.

New Jewish Week Blog

2008-11-06T11:50:00.000-08:00

Visit my new blog in the Jewish Week Web site, http:jewishlife-ny.com, for regular discussion on matters of Jewish continuity.

Stone's "W." Not Letter Perfect

2008-10-19T09:53:00.000-07:00

It's hard enough for a filmmaker to rake a historic figure over the coals while he is still in power and the story is still unfolding.

It's even more difficult when you leave gaping holes in the story that both undermine your point and lend ammunition to that figure’s defenders.
Oliver Stone’s "W." is meant to convey that George W. Bush is a lightweight who stumbled his way into the White House and misled the country. That’s not a hard thesis to sustain, and Stone makes an impressive effort in the re-enactments of cabinet meetings and other sessions in which the decision to invade Iraq was mulled and ultimately approved.
He also shows fairness to Bush, and good insight, by meaningfully depicting how becoming a Born-Again Christian turned the future president’s life around and transformed him from a boozing slacker who owed much of his life to his father’s string-pulling to a self-motivated force-to-be-reckoned with. At one point, a preacher tells the young Bush, soon to become governor of Texas, to treat everyone he meets "as if they were going to be dead at 12 o’clock" and show them unconditional love.

But depicting the life and presidency of George W. Bush with no reference at all to the protracted Florida legal battle that put him in office, which can either be described as his narrow victory or the misappropriation of the White House, depending on your perspective, is very much like depicting World War II with no reference to Pearl Harbor.
How Bush got into office and the shadow those events cast over his tenure is essential to understanding the Bush presidency. So is his more successful 2004 re-election and the "swift-boat" attacks on John Kerry that allowed him to finally outshine his father by winning the second term denied the old man.
Hurricane Katrina and the infamous "heck of a job, Brownie" reaction of the bumbling administration are also too pivotal to be excluded. True, there is only so much you can cram into a two-hour film, but Stone in two separate scenes shows the president choking on a pretzel –- as if that reflects more on his stewardship than the political purging of federal prosecutors, the Valerie Plame CIA leak or the disastrous and ill-fated nomination of his counsel, Harriet Myers, to the Supreme Court.
As it is, Stone’s film – evidently rushed for release before Election Day— wastes brilliant performances by nearly all the actors involved, particularly James Brolin (above) in the lead role and Richard Dreyfus as Dick Cheney, on an uneven film that toggles between farce and critical biopic. Once scene that has Bush and his inner circle, the most powerful men and woman in America wandering around Bush’s Crawford ranch, having lost their way – ostensibly a metaphor for the administration’s direction – looks like a late night TV skit with well-costumed and made-up actors trying their best to look foolish. Condoleezza Rice,as portrayed by Thandie Newton, comes across as particularly moronic, saying little in most scenes, sometimes simply repeating what others say, and usually coming across as completely intimidated by the men around her, an evasion (perhaps kind) of her pivotal role as Bush’s top foreign policy advisor. Colin Powell is portrayed more generously by Jeffrey Wright a the principled man in the room who ultimately caves in to the inevitable and supports the war at the UN.
Bush defenders will rightfully note that this film creates the misimpression that the Iraq war immediately undid the Bush presidency, if not Bush himself (in a dream sequence he is seen squaring off with his scornful father, who calls the war a "fiasco," an affirmation of his longstanding disapproval) without regard to two significant facts.
First, Bush was handily re-elected at a point where the war was it its deadliest, a year after his ridiculous "mission accomplished" aircraft carrier stunt. Secondly, the 2007 troop surge, rebuffed by Democrats and other critics as further escalation of a losing war, has earned Bush bragging rights, having drastically reduced the number of American casualties and stabilized Iraq to the point that a phased, victorious withdrawal is no longer a pipe dream.
Some say Stone was too kind to the president, considering his known left-wing bent. But what’s evident is that he was unfair to himself, cranking out a restrained and muddled effort that teases us with the possibility of a better, more illuminating film.

NYPD Vs. EDPs, Again

2008-10-02T20:54:00.000-07:00

You'll likely be hearing a lot more in coming weeks about the death of Iman Morales , especially since the police captain who gave the order that led to his death, evidently deeply distraught, has tragically taken his own life.
The events that led to these two men's deaths began on Sept. 24 when a mentally ill Morales, naked and brandishing a long fluorescent light bulb, climbed onto a fire escape and later atop a storefront gate. Lt. Michael Pigott, an Emergency Services Unit acting commander, eventually ordered another officer to fire a Taser at Morales, causing him to freeze up and fall to his death, head-first. What the cops involved thought would happen to Morales, precariously perched 10 feet up, as 5,00o volts surged through his body is anyone's guess.
The case brings to mind two other cases involving emotionally disturbed persons (EDPs) that ended fatally. In 1984, Eleanor Bumpurs, a woman facing eviction from her Bronx apartment, brandished a kitchen knife and threatened to throw lye at housing workers. In a struggle with police, she was shot to death with a 12-guage shotgun.
Fifteen years later, Gidone Busch faced more than a half-dozen cops outside his apartment in Borough Park, Brooklyn, after neighbors complained that he was walking around naked and acting strangely. The cops barged into his apartment, then pepper sprayed him, and when he charged outside angrily, gunned him down as he brandished a small household hammer.
In the Bumpurs case one officer was tried and acquitted of manslaughter and the city eventually paid her family $200,000 in a civil settlement. In the Busch case, no criminal charges were brought and four officers were found not liable in a civil action in 2003. However, a judge later threw out that verdict, saying the cops' testimony was suspect. There has yet to be a settlement or a motion for a new trial.
What all three cases have in common is their unnecessary outcome. In all cases, no one but the EDP was threatened (the cops' argument that they felt endangered by Busch's hammer was given short shrift by the trial judge, Sterling Johnson.)
The NYPD always promises to review procedures to avoid repetition of these kind of incidents. But one thing should be painfully obvious even to those of us with no police training or intensive knowledge of procedure: Cops who respond to EDP incidents need to know how best to cool these situations down rather than exacerbate them.
"All they had to do was leave my brother alone," Glenn Busch, Gidone's brother told me during the trial. "He wasn't threatening anyone." NYPD instructional videos shown during the trial clearly showed that the cops involved disregarded their own training by failing to contain the situation while waiting for more experienced personnel to arrive.
Morales' deaths suggests the NYPD has learned nothing in the nine years since.

Return Of The Intrepid

2008-10-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

As I watched the refurbished USS Interpid glide back into its berth today, its deck lined with former crew members, I thought about how much of a relic from a bygone era is this World War II vintage aircraft carrier.
At the height of her service, the Intrepid sustained massive casualties in battles with the Japanese, most of them from kamikaze attacks that nearly sunk the ship. So its crew was tasked not only with projecting America’s power against our enemies but also with fighting for their very existence. Without question, the ship lived up to its name and paid for it in blood and fire.
Today’s carriers, easily twice the size, and other naval ships have little to worry about in terms of their own survival, making the Navy probably the safest branch of service. This is not only because, Russia notwithstanding, few other countries have anything nearly as powerful in the water, but because electronic early warning surveillance, precision-guided missile technology and long-range fighter craft ensure that any threat to a naval craft can easily be neutralized miles before it comes within striking distance.
One recent exception was the terrorist strike on the cruiser USS Cole, the result of a sneak attack by a civilian craft in what was supposed to be a friendly port. That mistake surely won’t happen again anytime soon.
Other than that, despite the fact that our ships are fully involved in combat operations, nearly all naval casualties these days happen in accidents, like the infamous gunnery explosion on the USS Iowa or the undersea crash that nearly sank the USS San Francisco, a nuclear submarine.
That makes the bravery of the men who served aboard and kept the Intrepid afloat during numerous battles that much more striking. It was not just a matter of being brave and staying at your post under the most horrible conditions but also having both the skill and determination to defeat the enemy.
The private foundation that turned Intrepid into a museum raised and spent about $120 million to refurbish the ship.
Even with the above in mind, I have mixed feelings about this. That there are more urgent uses for that kind of money goes without saying.
But there is also the point raised today by the inevitable protestors. Is this musuem glorifying the sacrifice of the people who served, or military power and war itself?
What message are we sending to the thousands of children who will visit on school and family outings? That war is cool?
Whether they served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam or Iraq, thousands of veterans could tell those kids there is nothing cool about it. Soldiers die, often in gruesome, painful ways, and so do civilians. Many come back with limbs or other pieces of themselves missing, and most are haunted by memories of trauma they will never shake. While they can rightfully look back on those experiences as the proudest of their lives, few would care to relive them.
According to the leaflets handed out by the few dozen protestors, who noted that the ship’s return to its museum port coincided with Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday, the Interpid is”a celebration of military adventurism over diplomacy” and a “blatant indoctrination of school children” and a “military recruitment vehicle.”
I approached one of those protestors and said I partially agreed, and was uncomfortable with deceiving children into thinking that war is all about cruising around on a big ship with cool planes, even in these days when few sailors do get killed.
At the same time, I said, there has never been a greater need for a strong military, well equipped with the best in both firepower and manpower. You can’t be a lamb in a world of wolves.
Or a Gandhi in a world of Bin Ladens.
It will be a great day when navy ships, bombers and tanks can be melted down to build playgrounds and school buses. But that day is probably centuries, and numerous military victories away.
When she shrugged and walked off, in the shadow of that great ship, I knew that both of us were good Americans for speaking our mind. But it was the men on that ship, and the ones at sea, in the air and on land today, who made the conversation possible.

Your Tax Dollars At Work In Iraq

2008-09-23T15:48:00.001-07:00

As thousands of Jews get worked up about "next Hitler" Ahmadinejad of Iran, here's what's happening below the radar courtesy of another radical Islamic government. Only this is the one we're spending billions of dollars to prop up, not to mention the human cost.

Iraqi Who Visited Israel Facing Prosecution
(JTA) — The Iraqi legislator who visited Israel last week is facing prosecution and even execution. Mithal al-Alusi, who has been an advocate for peace with Israel, went to the Jewish state to attend a counterterrorism conference. In retribution for his peace efforts, fellow Iraqi lawmakers voted to discard his immunity from prosecution. He is accused of humiliating his country by visiting the Jewish state. Though his execution is unlikely, Alusi may lose his seat in parliament -- the only seat belonging to his liberal secularist party. Alusi went to Israel to rally international support for Iraq's fight against terrorism. He accuses Iran of meddling with his country's internal politics. "Iran is behind Hamas and Hezbollah and many other terrorist organizations," he told The Associated Press. "Israelis are suffering like me, like my people. So we need to be together. Peace will have more of a chance." Alusi used his German passport to travel to Israel free of Iraqi visa restrictions. He also visited in 2005, and subsequently two of his sons were assassined in Baghdad -- Alusi likely was the target.

Here is what our "most pro-Israel president ever" has wrought: Another Middle East regime where hatred of Israel will overwhelm common sense. It makes no difference to those Zion-phobic nutjobs in Iraq how bad this makes their fledgling elected Democracy-like government look. Never mind the mayhem and chaos Iran is causing in their country. Israel is the enemy.

Hopefully U.S. intervention will protect this guy from murder, if not from losing his seat. But short of giving him asylum they can't protect him forever. It's a sad, frightening reminder of what kind of country our troops are giving their lives for today, and how much worse it will get when we are ultimately gone.

A Press Release In The Kotel?

2008-07-25T11:26:00.000-07:00

It's impossible to know whether Barack Obama had public consumption in mind when he jotted down his note to be deposited in the Western Wall. The notes are supposed to be between supplicant and God. But nothing is sacred in a political campaign, or in the eyes of some journalists and editors. So he had to know there was at least a chance of someone peeking.
Turns out, that's what happened, after someone described as a seminary student violated a longstanding taboo and took the note out of the wall, later handing it over to the Israeli papers (a fine, fine seminary it must be.)
"Lord — Protect my family and me," reads the note as published in Maariv and reported by the AP. "Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will."
Givg Obama the benefit of the doubt that he was writing a prayer other than a press release, and that he believes in the power of prayer, what's impressive about that note is what it doesn't
"Please let me win the election and become president."
Too many of us, myself no exception, ask for selfish things when we pray, or seek them from God at spontaneous points in our day. "Please let me find a parking spot ... please let that store be open late tonight ... please let me make it home in time for the game ..."
Even if Obama suspected his note might be read, there are ways he could have couched his request for personal advancement in noble terms. But his humble note asks only for God's protection of him and his family, asks forgiveness and asks only to be an instrument of God's will, whatever that is."
Again giving him the benefit of a doubt that the note wasn't written by a spin doctor or image guru, it speaks well of him. You can learn a lot about a man or woman by what they ask of God.
Of course, that doesn't mean anyone else had the right to touch that note.

Our Sons, On The Front Lines

2008-06-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

MoveOn.org has created a new controversial ad airing in select states and a few national cable channels in which a new mother recruits her toddler son into the anti-Iraq war fight.
"“Hi, John McCain. This is Alex. He’s my first," says the mom. “So far, his talents include trying any new food and chasing after our dog. That and making my heart pound every time I look at him.
"So, John McCain,” she concludes, “when you said you would stay in Iraq for 100 years, were you counting on Alex? Because if you were, you can’t have him.”

It is a powerful spot and worthy of debate, especially since MoveOn is the group responsible for the distasteful and pointless newspaper ad calling General John Petraeus "General Betray-Us." Insofar as their goal is to stir debate and keep the Iraq war on the national agenda, they are doing their job, although they do seem to succeed in more discussion about MoveOn than about Iraq. When your top goal is fundraising, maybe that's not a bad thing.
In Monday's Times, Nicholas Kristoff, in a rare, right-wing perspective to establish even handedness, slams the ad as an attack on military service in general. "The ad boldly embraces a vision of a selfish and infantilized America, suggesting that military service and sacrifice are unnecessary and deplorable relics of the past. And the sole responsibility of others."
This ending, while cute, makes no sense since the "others" he refers to are also American who obviously feel otherwise.
Kristoff quotes a soldier's mother as saying "someone has to stand between our society and danger. if not my son, then who?"
Both Kristoff and the mother are pretending the ad bashes military service in general when it plainly speaks specifically about the Iraq war. Alex's mother mentions McCain's quote, taken well out of context, that he'd be prepared to keep U.S. troops in Iran for 100 years if necessary. While the rest of McCain's quote qualifies that, saying that's assuming troops aren't being hurt or killed (a naive expectation for a military man) it is fair to scrutinize this view and object to the notion that unborn, future soldiers, and those who are Alex's age, may one day be sent (whether they volunteer or are conscripted in a future draft) to continue a war that has not made any sense to a majority of Americans, has not proven to have improved our national security, and appears to be a colossal strategic error. The loved ones of our troops serving in Iraq, particularly those who have been dealt the ultimate pain of loss, have to grapple with the painful question of exactly for what their loved one was sacrificed.
It is a well-worn tactic for supporters of a war to brand opponents as critics who would oppose any war, any time, and all forms of military intervention. To package this ad as doing so is to miss its point, and sidestep the debate.

Call The Yankees’ Bluff

2008-06-12T12:05:00.000-07:00

The corporate heads of Yankee stadium are warning (perhaps threatening is the better word) that unless they get another $350-$400 million in tax-free city bonds for their over-budget stadium it may not open on schedule.
Betting types are probably safe laying odds the Bombers, who already scored $941 million in bonds, will get what they want. But it’s hard for objective people to see how the two sides are playing with even hands.
With the new stadium three quarters complete, the Yankees aren’t about to start making Dodger noises and threaten to move elsewhere. And if the new stadium isn’t ready so quick, they’ve still got a perfectly good one sitting next door.
The only possible, if unspoken threat, is that f they don’t get the help they need from the city, they’ll be forced to pass the cost along to patrons next season.
That’s a stretch, too. Die-hard fans would dig deeper into their pockets even if it means more credit-card debt. But with gas prices driving the cost of everything else up and a growing housing crisis, it’s not likely skyrocketing ticket and vending prices are going to put more money in the Yankees’ coffers. The average cost of a family outing to Yankee Stadium already exceeds $150, around the cost of a large bag of groceries, or three tanks of gas, or an average monthly electric bill.
At the same time as this, Gov. David Paterson is waging an honorable fight for a cap on property taxes, and finding substantial resistance from the teachers-union-cowed Legislature. It would be nothing short of an outrage if the Yankees get a bigger free pass at the public trough while struggling home-owners are told their tax dollars are too important and fund too many programs to be winnowed.
Under the stewardship of former deputy mayor Randy Levine, the Yankees know how to work the system, but the city’s Economic Development Corporation should play hardball.
Even if they have put seven lackluster seasons behind their last World Series Trophy, the Yankees are still the most successful sports franchise in history.
It’s a safe bet that without any more help from the city, they’ll come up with the money to finish their stadium.

Divinity And The Nazis

2008-06-05T10:51:00.000-07:00

It’s hard to know where to begin in the matter of Rev. John Hagee, the fundamentalist whose endorsement of John McCain has now been rejected by the candidate because of his comments about a divine role in the Holocaust.
It is a valid argument to say that McCain’s relationship with Hagee is not the same as Democrat Barack Obama’s with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose sermons Obama attended for 20 years without dissent until he became a presidential candidate.
But that’s as far as I go in siding with supporters of Hagee.
The comment he made about Hitler being a “hunter” sent by God to send Jews out of Europe (or in much larger part, off this Earth) and to Israel is a repugnant affront to divinity and a disgraceful sanctification of Hitler. It is natural for theologians to search for the hand of God, which they believe to be attached to everything, in the most evil acts. But we must take greater care when using God and Hitler in the same sentence.
How are those who survived the Holocaust, religious, secular or atheist, to think and feel when someone tells them God was behind their suffering? More likely, they envisioned the devil guiding the hands of their oppressors.
If the hand of God was at work during the Holocaust, it was not guiding Hitler. It was behind the millions of Allied troops and their leaders who worked furiously and with great sacrifice to topple Hitler’s war machine. It was behind the Righteous Gentiles whose humanity overshadowed their fear and compelled them to stand up for the oppressed. It was with the millions of Nazi victims who saved themselves, through acts of defiance or wisdom; and it was in the numerous twists of fate, small miracles if you will, that allowed millions more to escape. The hand of God was also lifting the spirits of the martyred to their rightful place at His side.
The hand of God most certainly was not guiding the vile Hitler and his minions, who defiled everything Godlike or holy on the Earth. To suggest otherwise is not only to sanctify the purest form of evil in history (how can Hitler be vilified if he was only a servant of God?), but to embolden contemporary or future racists with the false notion of righteousness.
If Rev. Hagee believes God unleashed Hitler on the Jews for a Divine purpose, he must also see the Almighty’s blessing behind contemporary terrorists and thugs who want to wipe Israel off the map. If so, what separates his thinking from al Quaeda’s?
The only rational theology is that God grants free will to all mankind to choose good or evil paths. When he does interfere, we must believe that it is to limit or nullify the harming of innocents, not to contribute to it.

The Worst Of Hillary

2008-06-04T17:30:00.001-07:00

After the White House years, Hillary Clinton had a chance to remake her public image and replace our memories of Whitewater, travelgate, filegate, vast-right-wing-conspiracy-gate, pardon-gate and every other minor or major scandal she foisted on us as first lady for eight years.
She succeeded in every possible way as a serious and hard-working, clearly ambitious senator who wasn't just hungry for publicity as a stepping stone to the presidency, but understood the issues she faced and how to best serve the people of her state, bringing home, according to today's NY Post, $2.2 billion in federal cash between 2002 and 2006. She also became a credible voice on foreign policy, notwithstanding her flop on the Iraq war, and a sensible critic of the Bush administration who could also be effectively bipartisan.
She started her campaign on solid footing, recovering from early losses and gaining momentum. But as her fortunes began to fade, we began to see the return of the 90s Hillary, stubborn rather than determined, petulant rather than graceful, and quick to cry conspiracy (sexist commentators, pro-Obama debate planners) to offset her own missteps.
We may never know what kept her in the race this long, but it's fair to question whether it was anything noble. In the speech that might have been her concession last night, but presented the bizarre notion that she still had options, Hillary gave out her Web site address and asked people to "help any way they can."
Anyone who donates to her now will prove the adage that a fool and his or her money are easily parted. But clearly she aims to use every last moment to pay down her campaign debt from other people's wallets rather than cut into the considerable fortune she and her husband have built.
Avarice and greed are not the characteristics of the senator we came to know in the past seven years. And so we wonder which Hillary stands to become our vice president, and how much oscillation between the two we will see as she continues what is sure to be a long career in public life.

The Class War

2008-05-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

Good for the New York Daily News.
They totally nailed the MTA for giving out free EZ Passes to the millionaires who serve (or served) on its board. How pathetically cheap can these individuals, like Peter Kalikow, be for saving a few hundred, maybe even a few thousand dollars a year they can easily afford and passing the expense on to a strapped system in whose interests they agreed to altruistically act?
This is just one of the egregious perks that came to light in just a few days in the tabloid life of New York.
Look through the pages and you’d be remiss in noticing a trend:

Item in Newsday on 5-27: Doctors and other officials at the non-profit North Shore-Long Island Jewish Hospital system get up to a $600 monthly stipend for leasing cars, which allows them the luxury of driving in free Cadillacs and Porsches and, until recently, a Jaguar for one lucky official who paid the balance of his or her lease through payroll deduction. (The hospital dumped that car when Newsday phoned about it.) According to Newsday the cost of these leases are passed on the patient, although sloppy reporting doesn’t detail how.
.
Item in the Daily News on 5-25: Disgraced public officials, even those convicted of crimes, will still collect city and/or state pensions when they hit retirement age.

In the 5-27 Daily News, a double header: The free EZ Passes for life scoop, and City Council members, who already make $112,000, racked up $277,000 in perks last fiscal year, such as Metrocards, cleaning services, photographers, travel and tchachkes like crystal apples.

These are legitimate stories, although the one about the hospital fails to disclose the most recent annual budget of the multi-billion dollar institution, so readers may judge for themselves whether the $64 million they raised privately should entitle them to such perks and how likely it is that the relatively small cost is actually passed on to patients (who, in any case, for the most part have their bills paid by insurance or Medicaid.)

Newsday has also led the field in uncovering part-time employees of public school districts, such as retained legal counsel, who manage to wangle staggering pensions for themselves through questionable accounting, now under review by the attorney general.

The zeal with which these papers are carrying out these investigations at a time when Americans are hurting economically suggests that class is beginning to divides us far more as a society than race or politics.
The rising cost of gas and its ripple effects will increasingly fuel (pun intended) more of this kind of coverage as as the empowered upper class in corporate America and in the public sector seem to be increasingly brazen.

Cannibals In The Media

2008-05-14T17:38:00.000-07:00

Mayor Mike Bloomberg is upset about the way reporters speak to him, it seems.
He blew up this week at a Newsday scribe who posed a loaded question to him, implying the mayor had been utruthful in the past.
Take heart, your honor. You are not alone. Any celebrity and most politicians can go through their Rodney Dangerfield "no respect" routine with you.
But if you really want some comfort, look at how the media carve up their own for dinner.
The Times devoted four reporters on Tuesday to a story of NBC News4 anchor Sue Simmons' accidental on-air obscenity blooper for Wednesday's paper. This was the second news cycle for what should have been a one-day story: Simmons messed up, she apologized, much embarrassment for her and move on. But the Times had reporters roaming the streets of New York to hear that citizens are "shocked, shocked" to find that famous people sometimes use the f-word.
That's better than the Post, the tabloid whose page size is shriking almost as quickly as its morals. Rupert Murdoch's flagship splashed "Boozy Susie" on its front page wood, and quoted several people, not one of them named, suggesting Sue Simmons drank too much during the break between her two newscasts, strongly implying without ever saying it that she was drunk during the mishap.
The Post and Times and every other paper, including Newsday, also made great hay out of the altercation between Newsday's Michael Frazier and Bloomberg. Frazier prefaced his question by saying the mayor "maintained" that he kept on open dialogue with the family of Sean Bell. Boomberg blew his stack because the word suggested he has lied. The Times went to the dictionary and showed that the word, in its simplest form, benignly means to assert or claim. But n fairness to the mayor, it does indeed have a negative connotation, as if to say "you persist in saying x, when everyone knows y."
Although he had a point (and probably a prior bone to pick with the reporter) Bloomberg could have been more gracious. He chose the political life, and he knows the adage about when you can't stand the heat.
But at least he can take comfort that there's no double standard among reporters when it comes to watching words.

OMG, Miley’s Like So Exploited

2008-04-30T21:11:00.001-07:00

Fifteen-year-old Miley Cyrus and her Disney bosses are “shocked, shocked” to see the latest issue of Vanity Fair.
“I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be 'artistic' and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed,” Cyrus said in a statement. "I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about."
First of all, Miley, it’s whom. Don’t be a fool, stay in school.
And does she really expect us to believe she didn’t get contractual pre-approval of the shoot before it went to press and saw it too late to have it changed? And what exactly was she thinking when photographer Annie Lebovitz told her to take off her shirt and hold a sheet against herself in a faux postcoital pose? And her father and entourage just happened to be out of the room when that happened? And she never mentioned it to them?
Just exactly how dumb do they think the American people are?
If you’re worried about her future, take heart. Just as Jamie Lyn Spears’ pregnancy won’t hurt her relationship with Nickelodeon one bit, neither will this Vanity Fair flap hurt Miley. In both cases the companies are “shocked” and “disappointed” all the way to the bank. Both “Zoe 101” and “Hannah Montana” will pick up tens of thousands more adolescent male viewers, more merchandise will be sold, the sponsors will get more business and everyone wins, even the newspapers who proclaim their righteous indignation even while plastering the "offensive" photo all over their page and Web sites. Meanwhile, both girls are providing for their future by beginning the transition from child star to grown up (I hesitate to say adult) stars.
If this all seems familiar, maybe it’s because not so long ago teen star Vanessa Hudgens of “High School Musical” fame, another Disney employee, turned up in her own, more explicit pictures. (At least in her case she was of legal age.) Again, we are asked to believe the actress had no idea how those pictures wound up on the Internet.
If you want to blame anyone, blame Jessica Biel, the likely trailblazer in all this. About a decade ago, she was a star of the WB’s family- friendly drama “Seventh Heaven,” playing the daughter of a minister. Then she found her way into the pages of a men’s magazine, and was fired by producer Aaron Spelling. No skin off Biel’s back. She’s now a major movie star, appearing in top-grossing films like "Stealth" and "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" as well as the upcoming "Nailed." Needless to say, she's no longer playing preacher’s daughters. Heard from any of her demure costars lately?
As long as sex means big money for American corporations, get used to seeing fewer boundaries on both.

“Your MetroCard Is Now Worth $5.50”

2008-04-30T21:09:00.000-07:00

Good For 2 3/4 Rides

Riding the subway lately seems like going out to dinner with one of those jerks who divides the check so precisely he asks you for $17.46, and that’s only because you can’t split a cent in half.
The profligate MTA, whose wasteful ways and duplicitous bookkeeping have been chronicled in numerous audits, gave in to pressure not to raise the fare with a backdoor increase on the backs of riders of moderate frequency. Instead of a $2.00 bonus for every ten rides purchased, the bonus is now $1.50. Too bad that’s not enough for a full ride. So after exhausting the ten rides, a rider then faces the choice of adding 50 cents for the last ride or buying another ten rides and winding up with a $3.00 bonus (good for one and a half rides, except there are no half-rides). Only on a $40 purchase do you end up with an even bonus good for three rides. The MTA is obviously pushing for a front-loading boost by pushing the high-priced card, and also banking on a stall float for the rest. Many of those who buy the smaller cards will simply carry around that surplus for days, weeks or months before paying to even it out. In some cases people will be frustrated, lazy or forgetful enough to toss away the card with the surplus, giving the MTA a free gift and getting nothing in return. Call it a de facto transit tax.
If only the MTA put as much effort into cutting spending and streamlining the system as they do figuring out clever, penny pinching schemes.

Does Obama Know Wright From Wrong?

2008-03-31T13:06:00.000-07:00

I’m generally not the type to condemn by association. Public officials and office seekers can’t always be held accountable for the statements, views and actions of those around them, whether they are family members, campaign contributors, political allies or advisors. An official is entitled to agree with some, but not all of an associate’s views without completely disassociating his or herself from that person.
It’s different with Brack Obama and his controversial pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. What’s at issue here is not whether whether Obama shares Wright’s bigoted and unpatriotic views. Clearly he does not.
The issue instead is one of moral courage. Acknowledging that he has been a member of Wright’s church for 20 years, the senator also admits that he’s been in the church at times when some of these offensive statements, which I won't repeat here, (Google him) were made. As a private citizen, what exception he may have taken with the pastor is between the two of them. As a man aspiring to be our commander-in-chief and chief executive of our nation, it is incumbent on him to detail whether he, as a prominent congregant and public official, he confronted the preacher about those views and tried to change them, and why he never considered leaving the church as a form of protest. Was this the best voice for his impressionable young daughters to hear at church? Did he offer those daughters an alternative view at home?
The cynics among us will assume that Obama did not cause a stir at this prominent Chicago religious stronghold because it was politically important to be associated with it as a candidate and to greet his constituents there as a state legislator and later as a senator. And Obama hasn't given much cause not to view things cynically.
In his latest, excellent commentary Ed Koch says he is “dumbfounded that there has been no drop in Barack Obama’s standing in the polls following revelations that he sat in Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years and did nothing, publicly or privately, to voice disagreement with Wright’s hate speech. Indeed, Obama’s poll numbers are going up. The most recent CNN national poll shows Obama with 50 percent and Hillary with 40 percent of likely Democratic voters.”
A Hillary Clinton supporter, Koch contrasts the Wright controversy with that dogging Clinton, that she lied about coming under “sniper fire” during her visit to Bosnia as first lady 12 years ago (as if the U.S. military and Secret Service would really have allowed such a dangerous situation.)
The Wright controversy was worse, says Koch, because “Hillary's failure, as gross as it may be, is related to self promotion. Barack's failure, in my judgment, is an out-and-out failure of moral strength.”
It’s unlikely we’re still looking at a contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama because everyone but the senator and her husband knows her campaign is a sinking ship. So it’s all-but-certain that war hero Republican John McCain, who showed the strongest courage and fortitude when he was tested, will face off against a Democrat who apparently couldn’t muster some backbone under far less trying circumstances.
In the last two elections, the better candidate clearly lost. This time, the Democrats will have no one to blame but themselves.

4,000

2008-03-26T07:21:00.000-07:00

Surrounded by the trappings of the White House -- portraits of great
presidents, abundant flags, and the grandeur of the Oval Office --
it's safe to assume, and apparent from his public statements that George W. Bush has convinced himself that he's a wheel in the machinery of history, another brave and bold man forced by fate to make complicated decisions. No doubt he has come to viewthe 4,000 U.S. war dead and the tens of thousands of dead among the Iraqis and other nationalities no differently than Franklin D. Roosevelt looked at the toll of World War II. Reclining in the seat of power surrounded by all that history makes it all too easy to deceive yourself.He may find it more difficult in the post-White House years to find as much wool to pull over his eyes.
Dick Cheney was recently asked in a Fox News interview about the three quarters of Americans who do not believe this war is worth fighting. His answer was a bolt of refreshing, brutal honesty.
"So?"
Leaders should not necessarily be swayed by the majority if they truly feel they are right and have some basis to back themselves up. But Cheney was expressing not so much his fortitude as his contempt for the people who twice elected him. What do they know? They're only the taxpayers, the electorate, the citizenry, the constituents. The republic. What am I supposed to do? Care what they think? At least a quarter of them have it right.
Each day it becomes increasingly clear that this administration intends to simply hand off this unseemly package to the next president. This is shameful. It's reasonable to debate the nature of our exit strategy, but not whether there should be one.
"So?"

At Least He Was A Man About It

2008-03-12T11:51:00.000-07:00

As a former prosecutor, Eliot Spitzer surely understood how strong the case against him was and how small the likelihood that he could beat the rap after he was identified to the media as client 9 in the investigation of a high-priced call girl operation.
So it stands to reason the soon-to-be ex-governor wasn’t offering any of that “I will be vindicated” garbage or even hedging his bets by saying “these are only allegations.”
But it’s good to see that he didn’t come up with any wimpy sidestepping of blame or feigning illness or disability like some other recent public figures. Remember Florida Congressman Mark Foley, who entered rehab claiming alcoholism, saying it was the Evil Bottle that made him send lewd text messages to underage interns? Mel Gibson also played the drunk card after his anti-Semitic ramblings hit the airwaves. Winona Ryder claimed she was doing research for a role when she was caught pinching merchandise from a Rodeo Drive clothing store, and “Who” rocker Pete Townshend tried a similar lame alibi when caught accessing online kid porn.
Former New Yok chief judge Sol Wachtler blamed mental illness on his compulsive harassment of a former lover, and in that case he may be right, but he should've gotten help before it reached crisis mode.
Spitzer has made a mess out of his life and, worse, those of his wife and kids, not to mention legislators and aides in Albany who must work overtime to keep the state budget process on track during an unexpected transition. Whether he was driven to ruin by arrogant overconfidence or a subconscious desire to trip himself up, Spitzer has displayed a recklessness beyond words.
But he deserves a No Alibis award for taking his lumps, blaming no one else, admitting that he violated his own principles and apologizing to his family and the people of the state. Let’s hope he serves as a role model in that regard, at least.

Hillary Is The Last Hope Of The Center

2008-03-06T10:57:00.000-08:00

The Clintons are well known for playing to the middle, knowing that it’s good politics to avoid getting sucked too far into the left wing of the Democrat party and understanding that it has no significant right wing.
That’s why it’s good news that Hillary Clinton is still in the race and has a fighting chance. Barack Obama and John McCain are shaping up as opposite extremes, and nowhere is that more clear than in the most important issue facing America today.
I believe the economy, health care, climate change and energy independence, while important, all pale in comparison to the need for us to avoid any more futile and arrogant wars. The next president must manage our resistance to terrorism and vigilance against fundamentalist threats with the need to take back our credibility and maintain a pragmatic deterrence. No realistic American at this stage of the game can say that the invasion of Iraq and our prolonged presence there has served our security interests.
John McCain would have our great grandchildren fight there if necessary while Barack Obama would begin the pullout on Inauguration Day. They’re both wrong. We need a realistic phase-out of the troops that leaves measures in place to ensure we won’t have to go back.
More importantly, we need to learn from our mistakes, on the one hand knowing that our sleepy response to al Qaeda provocaton in the 90s led to 9-11, and on the other knowing Iraq was the wrong war at the worst time.
Having the Clintons back in the White House will surely lead to more of the same shenanigans we endured in the 90s: Ethically challenged plums and paybacks for the backers to whom she’s indebted, mistreatment of staff, arrogance, expectation, privilege and who knows what kind of mischief the first gentleman will get into with all that power and too much time on his hands.
But we can survive all that. It will make great entertainment, create a diversion from the national agenda and maybe wreck some careers and lives. But Americans won’t get killed from that. Ever see that bumper sticker: “When Clinton lied, no one died”?
Barack Obama surely won’t set out to get us into another war. But his well-meaning “let’s talk” philosophy will inevitably lead him to put too much faith in the wrong people, and his meteoric political rise may make him overconfident that he can work miracles. Great things can happen through diplomacy, but so can great mistakes.
John McCain, sadly, doesn’t seem to be a man whose Vietnam experience taught him to loathe the idea of war, rather than just losing one. His tough talk about Cuba and about Russia’s Vladimir Putin suggest an internal seething, and his response to a question about the security threat of Iran, singing “bomb, bomb Iran,” suggest flippancy about unleashing destruction and sending our forces in harm’s way.
Hillary Clinton is far from the perfect answer to both men, but the likelihood is that she’ll be the most prudent of the three options as commander-in-chief. Yes, her husband was asleep at the switch when he should have been launching pre-emptive strikes at Bin Laden. But he came to the White House via the Arkansas state house. Hillary would have eight years dealing with international affairs in the Senate, as well as the lesson of 9-11 behind her if she assumes the responsibility of our defense.
The way I see it, she's the best way out of this mess.

Again.

2008-02-15T10:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday another six Americans defended the Second Amendment with their lives.
Not that that was their intention. Their plan for the afternoon was to sit through a geology class at Northen Illinois University then maybe go study or take another class or do something else we all take for granted.
But Stephen Kazmierczak had other plans for them. Who knows why the hell he came to that particular class and opened fire, killing those six people. Who really cares? The undeniable fact is that an epidemic of mass murder has been sweeping across the country for almost a decade now, beginning with the Columbine shootings in Colorado in 1999, and encompassing schools and colleges, shopping malls, workplaces, restaurants and even city streets. We ignore it at our peril.
In this latest case, Kazmierczak seems to have bought his weapons legally, which complicates the debate. Obviously, the best of gun laws can't keep a first-time offender with no prior psychiatric history from making his purchases. The only other answer to that is that there should be no gun sales at all, a position few would support (but one which wouldn't cost me any sleep).
New York's Mike Bloomberg seems to be the only major elected official pressing for serious re-examination of gun laws, but even he is focusing on cracking down on illegal guns, which would not have prevented many of these massacres, including the most deadly and notorious, last year's record body-count at Virginia Tech.
I have yet to hear any rational argument why ordinary Americans with no demonstrable need to defend themselves should be able to legally arm themselves to the hilt. Statistics show that people who buy guns to protect themselves from criminals are more likely to be hurt or killed by their own guns than to hurt an assailant.
When I go to sleep at night, I will be far less worried about an armed burglar invading my home or a foreign invader taking over the country, or the government turning against me (some of the far-fetched arguments for the "well-armed militias" mentioned in the Constitution), than I am about going to a shopping mall and meeting up with the next Michael Kazmierczak.
My life and those of my loved ones -- or those of anyone else -- are far too high a price to pay for America to uphold the most lenient possible interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Romney Lowers The Discourse

2008-02-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

Mitt Romney has some good ideas, but hasn’t contributed all that much to this vitally important election campaign.
Reading the writing on the wall, Romney has now surrendered to his low poll numbers and poor showing on Super Tuesday. Trying to portray his decision as principled instead of pragmatic Romney this morning dropped a rhetorical bomb.
"Now if I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention," he said, "I want you to know, I have given this a lot of thought. I would forestall the launch of a national campaign. And frankly I would be making it easier for Senator Clinton or Obama to win. Frankly in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror."
As if he could really have raised enough money to limp through the rest of the primaries without depleting his own fortune.
But the “surrender to terror” crack is a low blow. As much as I opposed the war, I too believe that pulling the troops out of Iraq on a preset timetable, oblivious to the ramifications, would be a disaster, and that is my main problem with Barack Obama (see post below, “Obama’s Mistake.”)
I pray that if Obama is elected he will see things differently and realize that leaving with no infrastructure to maintain order or a mechanism for continued influence there will ensure that Iraq remains the most unstable place on earth and ultimately harm the region and our security interests, if not our actual security. Odds are he won’t, because he has already indebted himself so deeply to the antiwar movement.
Still, Romney’s use of the term “surrender to terror” in this context raises questions of courage and patriotism, and is beneath someone who aspires, or aspired to be our leader.
I don’t believe that Obama or Hillary Clinton won’t stand up to terrorists when necessary. They simply believe, as do a majority of Americans, that Iraq is a sidestep from the war on terror that has harmed our ability to quickly deploy troops if needed, and that it has increased rather than reduced the number of terrorists we have to fight. It has also empowered more dangerous states like Iran.
In a very short time the intramurals will be over and our attention will shift to the national, one-on-one campaign. John McCain, as the now-presumptive GOP nominee, can make an excellent case for himself based on his substantial foreign policy experience and his long history of service to America. Let’s hope he sticks to the successful playbook that propelled him this far and lets the demagoguery exit with Mitt Romney.

God Bless America

2008-02-05T09:22:00.000-08:00

The older I get, the more I come to believe that the overwhelming majority of Americans are decent people who want to feel good about America and its place in the world.
After seven years that saw us harm our standing abroad, alienate our allies in common struggles, flagrantly disregard undeniable concern about our climate, leave our own people languishing in a disaster area, actually have a debate about whether torture is appropriate, water down our civil ,iberties, pump up the xenophobia and watch bloodbath after bloodbath erupt in schools, shopping malls and other public places without serious debate of gun laws, I believe Americans more than anything want to turn the page toward a better future.
In the voting thus far our people have made smart choices, and the viable candidates remaining in the race each offer a clear vision of a better future in which sound moral choices will supercede grim political calculus or hubris.
The incredible success of Barack Obama is the clearest indication yet that America wants to bury its racist baggage once and for all, and electing the first black leader of a Western democracy would be a strong step in that direction. Hillary Clinton’s ascension, in spite of the lapses of judgment she and her husband showed during their White House years, demonstrate the American willingness to forgive and our openness to personal growth and second chances. A woman president would go a long way toward shattering the many glass ceilings in society and plant a global seed against sexism.
John McCain, too, would make history as a president whose advanced years didn’t stand in the way of our entrusting him with our most daunting and demanding responsibilities, recognizing that Americans today are living longer, retiring later, and contributing to society well into their twilight years.
Any way you look at it, a new America is on the horizon. If our prayers are answered, we will find a way not to waste the opportunities God has given us.

The Return Of Ally McBeal

2008-02-01T05:00:00.001-08:00

Last night's premiere of "Eli Stone" on ABC introduced America to a principled thirtysomething lawyer filled with contemporary angst taking on some of the thorniest legal cases in the nation while plagued by hallucinations.
Sound familiar?
As David Spade might say, I think I liked this show better the first time, when it was called "Ally McBeal."
Ally meet Eli, Eli meet Ally. I doubt the similar sounding names are a coincidence.
"McBeal" was a runaway hit of the mid-90s, and featured Calista Flockhart as the angst-ridden lawyer who would occasionally find dancing babies, unicorns or the ghost of her dead ex-boyfriend in her office between rounds in court. Produced by legal aficianado David E. Kelley, who also created of "The Practice," "Picket Fences" and
"Boston Legal," the show routinely had Ally and her quirky law partners arguing in Boston court room cases that would ordinarily end up on the Supreme Court docket because of their complexity and controversy, and of course wrapping them up neatly in about an hour.
Instead of the angst of a single woman, Eli Stone is grappling with a committed man's drive for purpose. Adding to the urgency is his diagnosis with a brain aneurysm that could go at any time. That gives the writers a chance to explore themes of religion, spirituality and how, as brilliantly rendered in the first episode featuring cameo guest star George Michael, the 80s Wham frontman, "You gotta have faith."
"Stone" co-creator Greg Berlanti acknowledged the Ally connection in an interview with USAToday.
"I don't think you can do a law show with humor now without it being a descendant" of Ally, says Berlanti.
Outside of "Lost," which is in a category of its own and is the lead-in for "Eli Stone," it's hard to come up with anything original on network TV these days. But "Stone" is worth watching for the solid performance of Johnny Lee Miller, a fresh face on TV, and some decent writing.
And, of course, you never know who may pop up in the next hallucination. Boy George, maybe?

9-12 For Rudy, At Last

2008-01-31T10:22:00.000-08:00

Rudy Giuliani wasn’t supposed to release the sealed criminal record of a man who was shot by police in 2000, but he did it anyway because it served his political interests. No one held him accountable.
Rudy Giuliani wasn’t supposed to spend tens of thousands of tax dollars on frivolous legal battles, but he did so repeatedly. No one held him accountable.
Rudy Giuliani wasn’t supposed to appoint unqualified people with no relevant experience to be a commissioner of an important agency like the Housing Development Corporation. But he did, the commissioner went to jail for stealing from the city, and no one held Giuliani accountable.
Rudy Giuliani wasn’t supposed to take thousands of documents out of City Hall when he left office and catalog them privately before anyone could take stock of what might be missing when he finally returned them. You guessed it, he did anyway. No one held him accountable.
I could go on and on, into the more serious stuff about the WTC command center, the firefighters radio problem and the hands-off approach to the “battle of the badges” that may have cost lives on 9-11, but you get the picture. Rarely, if ever, has Rudy Giuliani been held accountable for his myriad, heavily documented trail of missteps and undisputedly wrong decisions.
Until Tuesday.
Voters in Florida scored the knockout punch when they repeated what those in New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina had already expressed. Enough of you, Rudy, and your shameless exploitation of 9-11 and the glossy, “America’s Mayor” mantle created by the media that camouflaged the real Rudy. Enough of the picture of your abuse of power and messy personal life emerging piecemeal in the tabloids. Enough of you trying to hammer the square peg of your domestic policy positions into the round hole of the Republican base with nobody noticing.
Giuliani was a competent mayor if you look only at results, but a failed leader because he can no longer inspire diverse constituencies, as he once did, and now commands only the narrowest following. Surely that has a lot to do with his penchant for self-absolution.
Giuliani wrote a book on leadership, which I’ll never read. But my limited grasp of the concept tells me that real leaders hold themselves as accountable as the people they serve hold them, and after showing lousy judgment have the sense to get out of the way, not try to take on more responsibility.
Fortunately, Republican primary voters felt the same way.

Jews And Jerusalem

2007-12-26T10:31:00.001-08:00

If I often invite you to dinner, does that give you part ownership of my house?
If you gave me a housewarming gift, may you prevent me from selling the house?
If we grew up together in a home we once shared, must I ask you consent before making decisions that affect me more than you?
These metaphors are overly simple, but sometimes that’s the best way to make a point.
Israel’s duly elected, though highly unpopular prime minister, Ehud Omert, has decided that parts of Jerusalem most Israelis shun and no American Jews ever visit should be part of a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.
Treason, say American Jews. Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people. We all have a say in it’s future and no Israeli leader has the right to re-divide it against the wishes of Jews around the world.
“No Israeli government has the unilateral or unfettered right to negotiate anything on behalf of the Jews when it comes to the eternal Jewish verities or heritage, such as our capital,” writes Jeff Ballabon in opinion piece distributed by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “As such, Olmert's statements were not merely disappointing to Jewish sensibilities, they were dangerous to Jewish interests.”
It’s true enough that Jews outside Israel have a say in the future of Jerusalem. But they do not have a vote.
The burdens of protecting, defending and maintaining Jerusalem are not shared proportionately by Jews inside and outside Israel. A proportionate vote on its future, therefore, would be ridiculous and unfair.
It is, of course, Israeli troops and police from all over the country who put their lives on the line to maintain the attachment of Arab areas of Jerusalem to the Jewish neighborhoods. It is, of course, residents of Jerusalem and other areas of Israel whose tax dollars pay for the upkeep and security of the city.
Diaspora Jews, and Americans in particular, play a crucial role by lobbying their governments for political support and sending millions of dollars in philanthropic aid to help the people, institutions and infrastructure of Jerusalem. That political support’s effects can be seen in legislation passed by Congress such as the one requiring the U.S. embassy to be moved from Tel Aviv To Jerusalem, which asserts a sense of the American people that this disputed land is indeed Israel’s capital (even though two presidents have now ignored it.)
But however important is that political and financial support, it is cheaper than blood.
It is not just Israel’s soldiers who spill their blood for Jerusalem, but ordinary civilians, including women and children, who suffer the consequences of the peace process. The outcome of negotiations, or lack of negotiations, too often means an outbreak of violence. Sometimes those killed and maimed are visiting Diaspora Jews, but the vast majority of them are Israelis.
Ehud Olmert has contradicted himself by first telling the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations at a dinner that he wouldn’t think of making a decision on Jerusalem while ignoring the feelings of Diaspora Jews, and then setting out on a path to do just that. "The government of Israel has a sovereign right to negotiate anything on behalf of Israel,” he said before the Annapolis peace conference, in response to American Jewish critics.
His mistake was in making the first statement, not the second and politics and leadership are all about dealing with the latest reality and correcting mistakes.
I have no intention of ever visiting Abu Dis or any of the Arab neighborhoods now on the negotiating table, no matter whose sovereignty they are under, since I generally am not welcome there and have no one to visit.
Yet I am still pained with ceding more of an already miniscule country to another authority, especially one that still can’t put the word coexistence into its lexicon. The eventual Israel will be a jigsaw land with difficult borders and constant threat of attack, as the people of southern Israel are already facing from Gaza-based rocket launchers. Our years of suffering in the exile have earned us better than that.
Giving up part of Jerusalem may well be a major blunder, just as many feel the disengagement from Gaza has now proven to be. But it’s the mistake of Israelis to make.
If we are unhappy about it, we should write our letters and make our statements, while accepting the reality that guests and friends aren’t on equal footing with owners and defenders.

'Knocked Up' Feminism

2007-12-11T08:42:00.000-08:00

Seen the movie “Knocked Up?” Me too.
Notice the protest sign around star Katherine Heigl’s neck while she was filming it? Me neither.
That’s why it strikes me as fascinating that, with the movie now cleaning up in video stores after a very successful theater run, the "Grey's Anatomy" star is now trashing the film as sexist.
“It paints the women as shrew, as humorless and uptight and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys,” Heigl tells Vanity Fair this month. “Ninety-eight percent of the time it was an amazing experience but it was hard for me to love the movie.”
The millions she made off the movie, then, allowed her to relegate those concerns about the script to only two percent of her consciousness.
This is not to say the points she made are not legtimate. It just seems unseemly, though, to take the studio’s money to film a movie called “Knocked Up” only to come up with a feminist critique of it afterward. Kind of like taking a furrier's money for a day's work and then at 5 o'clock running outside to join a PETA protest.
With her comments, Heigl’s obviously angling for more serious, thoughtful roles than the humorless sexpot she played in “Knocked Up.” Shouldn’t be difficult. Hollywood has plenty of movies about vacuous, self-important people trying to come across as deep. It’s their stock and trade.
And by the way, I didn’t think the men in “Knocked Up” came across as goofy and lovable (fun loving, I’ll give you.) They were just as empty and vacuous as the women.

Mean Books

2007-12-08T15:28:00.000-08:00

Are nasty memoirs and thinly veiled revenge fiction the future of Jewish literature?

If you spit up at God, the old expression warns , it could fall back in your face.
In the case of Shalom Auslander, however, spitting up at God has made him a bestselling author.
Auslander’s memoir, “A Foreskin’s Lament,” is the tale of an Orthodox family’s dysfunction and one man’s rejection of the hypocrisy and strictures of a rigidly observant life. The provocative title refers to his being cast-off and “bloodied” by his experiences.
“My family and I are like oil and water, if oil made water depressed and angry and want to kill itself,” Auslander writes.
No detail of his life is spared the chronicle, from Auslander’s war with God, his longing for his abusive father’s death, his secret binging on non-kosher food, casual drug use and kleptomania to his sexual longings and what sordid findings turn up in a thorough search of his parents private possessions.
The pages drip with contempt for both his parents and God. For it is they, not he, who bear responsibility for his legion of misdeeds, we learn, in one of the biggest evasions of personal responsibility since George W. Bush tried to explain Iraq.
Other kids come from abusive, dysfunctional religious families and manage to stay on the right side of the law. God knows why Auslander was different.
Another best-selling book by a Jewish author that has stirred controversy while flying off the shelves is “My Holocaust” by Tova Reich. Though a fictional account of shady officials running the U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum, it happens to evoke events and situations that mirror those of her husband, Walter Reich, who was fired as director of the museum for what he considered a principled stand at odds with his board members.
So scathing is her narration, and so devoid of redeeming value are the central characters, that the book comes off without a sentence of believable dialogue and with situations so bizarre and metaphorical that it plays out like the revenge fantasy of a disgruntled Holocaust museum employee on acid. Particularly grating is the fake European accent of the main character (it would be unfair to call him the protagonist), Maurice Messer, that sounds like how a neo-Nazi might mimick a Holocaust survivor.
Auslander and Reich share a catharsis that accomplishes the opposite of their intent, assuming (perhaps by giving too much credit) that their motive is more than just selling books.
Auslander escaped his tortured childhood family life by replacing it with a loving wife and child. Good for him. Too bad he pays the bills by wearing his pain on his sleeve, the kind of victimhood he seems to loathe when complaining that Jewish holidays are all about suffering. It’s wrong for Jews to make a festival out of Purim, when the Jews escaped mass murder at the hands of a tyrant. But it’s all right for Auslander to parade his sob story before the public for his own self-aggrandizement?
More hypocrisy: Auslander complains that his parents were devastated by the loss of a child that preceded him, lamenting that it affected their ability to function as parents. Why couldn’t they get over it?
And yet his own obsessive later worry that ill will befall his own child as God’s revenge for his misdeeds is enough to send the now-grown up Auslander into therapy. Auslander’s pain has a hechsher. His parents’ is treif.
Reich’s book has been received as a send-up of how Holocaust remembrance, cynically dubbed as “The Shoah business” has become an industry that sacrifices morality on the altar of money and places a higher premium on Jewish suffering than that of myriad other groups that endured their own “holocausts.” But it comes across more as a screed against a venerable institution that, while not above reproach, has sunk nowhere near as deeply as she suggests. It’s all too easy to imagine Holocaust deniers and other anti-Semites reading this book with glee. That’s less of an argument against it, however, than the fact that it’s dull and tedious.
Scornful books about Jewish life are nothing new, and Auslander seems to be heavily influenced by precursors such as Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint. But Jewish literature may be undergoing a phase not unlike network TV in the age of ascendant cable channels. Will publishers increasingly prize shock value over message, torture over triumph and spleen venting over enlightenment?
Let’s hope not. Authors like Reich and Auslander are clearly out to get even. But we are the ones they punish.

At War With God

2007-05-15T07:09:00.000-07:00

Christopher Hitchens is the kind of snarky Brit who thinks he’s doing us a favor by sharing with us his wisdom, while most of us probably wish he’d skip back to his side of the pond and take his opinions and books with him.
Hitchens hates religion and, by extension, has it in for God. He’s written all about it in a new book: “God is Not Great: How Religion Ruins Everything.”
I haven’t read it, nor will I, but it’s a safe bet he probably filled it with the foibles of the hypocritically and clumsily religious: People whose statements and activities accomplish the opposite of their stated religious goals and values: Naughty priests, holier-than-though members of Congress, anti-gay church groups, God-invoking racists and other usual suspects.
Hitchens was a guest this week of HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher, another guy who just can’t fathom why atheism isn’t spanning the globe. If the two aren’t in love and planning joint projects, they should be.
There is plenty of fun to be made of religious hypocrisy and plenty of lessons to learn from religious malpractice. But why are the Hitchenses and Mahers of the world never content to simply eschew religion themselves, or even mock it if they wish, without turning militant atheism into their own brand of evangelism. Is there no one on the planet who has been well-served by faith, in their view? Are they so narcissistically intertwined with their own egos that they must believe it’s on them to rescue humanity from deception?
I’ve long believed that the most fierce battles people fight publicly are those that engulf their inner selves. Maybe Maher and Hitchens can’t feel truly at ease with their atheism while other people cling to, and obviously flourish from, their faith in a higher being. Maybe winning more people over to non-belief is their own form of evangelism.
In the end, it’s no great intellectual exercise to illustrate the misuse and corruption of religion. It might take more brainpower, though, to explore the balance in life between those who spread hatred, war and destruction in God’s name and those who toil at hospitals, shelters, food pantries, orphanages or other programs run by religious groups, or on their own, who consider their work in the service of their Creator.

Tommy Thompson, Dope

2007-04-18T10:13:00.000-07:00

"I'm in the private sector and for the first time in my life I'm earning money," [Tommy] Thompson told the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. "You know that's sort of part of the Jewish tradition and I do not find anything wrong with that."

This guy wants to be president. The Repiblican former secretary of health and human services for Bush said that with a straight face last week. He later apologized and said he was simply congratulating Jews on their success in America. If he wants to be taken seriously, he needs to now do two things:
1. Tour some of the social service facilities in New York and elsewhere that specialize in providing a safety net to tens of thousands of poor, near poor and struggling Jews -- most of them elderly and/or immigrants -- and put aside his stereotypes long enough to get some real statistics.
2. Get an advisor who can teach him a thing or two about actual Jewish tradition so when he talks he won't sound like a dope.

Plane Nuts

2007-02-13T08:22:00.000-08:00

Now the big argument on Capitol Hill is over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's mode of transportation to Washington. As third in line to be president, she's entitled to a government plane. Question is, how big and what type.
Pelosi argues she needs one with enough fuel capacity to get to DC non-stop from her home state of California, and that's bigger than the one her predecessor, Dennis Hastert had.
Her GOP detractors say suck it up and take the standard plane, no more or less than what other speakers have had.
One might argue convincingly that the speaker and her entourage could fly coach most of the time and simply have an Air Force jet on stand-by in case of the unlikely scenario that something happens to the president, vice president and secretary of state.
This should be determined by experts. So here's the quick and easy solution for Ms. Pelosi: Keep Hastert's Gulfstream while a panel of independent, bipartisan experts studies the issue and agree to be bound by their findings -- including giving up any designated aircraft if that's what they deem appropriate.
That's the best way to satisfy all sides of the argument.

The Wrong Stuff

2007-02-08T10:57:00.000-08:00

Our national obsession is now Lisa Nowak, the astronaut who has given selflessly of herself to provide late-night talk-show hosts, tabloid writers, stand-up comics and the crowd at your office water cooler with weeks of fodder.
Nowak, of course, left her husband and kids to travel 900 miles across the country, allegedly to attempt a kidnapping or assault (possibly even murder) against a perceived rival for the fellow astronaut with whom she appears to have been obsessed. It’s unclear whether he ever returned her affections.
Nowak famously wore a diaper during her long car trip – as astronauts do during takeoff and landings -- to avoid bathroom breaks. She must have stopped several times for gasoline, though, during which time she could have relieved herself from both discomfort and the humiliation to come.
“It’s like this story came out of a 24 hour news improv group,” said Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show." “ 'Somebody give me a job, a relationship and item that’s inherently funny and … scene.' ”
What makes this story so interesting – and in a way frightening -- is that astronauts, because there are so few of them and they work in an environment with little margin for error, are assumed by necessity to be the best and brightest our nation has to offer. This was a decidely dumb and evidently irrational stunt.
Despite the two tragic space shuttle disasters, the program (which I have repeatedly argued here is a waste of money, time and resources) is generally run safely and effectively. More than a hundred missions have gone without a hitch.
The thought of loose cannons in the ranks hurts that confidence.
It may well be that Ms. Nowak is solidly put-together, professional person who suffered an unavoidable, medically induced psychotic incident. That’s up to doctors and the court to figure out.
I hope the larger picture isn’t that NASA, like many other federal agencies – FEMA and the EPA the most notorious of them – isn’t slipping into stagnation under an administration too bogged down in a losing war to pay attention to domestic affairs.
It’s never too much of an exaggeration to wonder how much benign neglect in this administration will eventually become malignant neglect, and we may not see the full effect for years to come, when a poorly selected, mentally unstable member of our most selective branch of service may seem in retrospect like a missed omen.

What Joe Biden May Have Meant

2007-02-01T12:45:00.000-08:00

Delaware Democrat Joe Biden is in trouble for comments in The New York Observer about Barack Obama, his colleague from Illinois and presidential primary rival.
Describing Obama, he said this:
"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy."
The word clean has gotten him into the most trouble, although implying that other African Americans aren't nice-looking, bright, articulate or mainstream may also be considered unkind.
Ostensibly, the contrast he was drawing is between Obama and two of the most recent black presidential contenders, Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
Neither succeeded in drawing substantial "mainstream" support, that is among non-minorities, whereas Obama was elected by an entire, mostly white state. Neither Jackson nor Sharpton has been elected to anything.
Part of the reason for that is that both have baggage. Jackson was hounded during his campaign by those who objected to his description of New York as "Hymietown," an extremely inarticulate reference that offended not only Jews.
Sharpton, of course, has faced his own squabbles with Jews for invoking "diamond merchants" in a speech about chasidic Jews at the funeral of an accident victim killed by a chasidic man. Very inarticulate. He later apologized for calling a Harlem merchant a "white interloper" after the man's store was burned down. Also on his resume is the Tawana Brawley hoax scandal, the related Steven Pagones defamatiion suit and an investigation by the FEC into the finances of his 2004 national campaign.
Obama has not been touched by any hint of scandal or suggestion of wrongding.
There's no way to get into Joe Biden's head, but it might very well be that he was, at least subconciously contrasting Obama with those two recent African American candidates when the word clean came to his mind.

Obama's Mistake

2007-01-31T08:38:00.000-08:00

I like Barack Obama, and think he has the guts and the common sense to make a good president.
But the Illinois senator is making a big mistake for the sake of political gain with the introduction today of a bill to remove all forces from Iraq by March, 2008.
If implemented, this plan would further endanger the lives of our troops.
When the Israelis ended their long occupation of southern Lebanon, they left under heavy fire from Hezbollah guerillas, seeking a historic legacy that they drove the Israelis out rather than political considerations in Jerusalem. The same will happen in Iraq.
I've been against the war from the beginning. One less Saddam Hussein in the world was not worth the lives of 3,000 American soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians and the physical and emotional maiming of tens of thousands more of both.
I don't say that now that we're in it, we must prevail. Victory as we define it is impossible. You can capture a country, but -- as we have seen throughout history -- you cannot capture a people. Far too many Iraqis don't want either a U.S. presence or what they perceive to be a U.S.-puppet government. The parade of roses Bush foolishly expected from the Iraqi people has never and will never materialize.
Sooner or later we will have to swallow two bitter pills: accepting defeat by the insurgents and living with whatever cesspool of violence will eventually become of Iraq. In the best scenario it will be divided into sectarian feifdoms. In the worst, the land will be grabbed by Iran and Syria.
If we must swallow those pills, better to get it over with sooner rather than later, and better to do it judiciously. Publicly announcing a timetable, as if the bad guys don't watch CNN, is folly.
Obama is politically astute to learn from the lesson of the 04 Democrat John Kerry and articulate a clear, consistent Iraq position. But he cannot allow himself to be elected on the blood of hundreds more soldiers who will die if the insurgents aim to ratchet up the body count before the calendar runs out.
We do indeed need a timetable for withdrawal as quick as possible. But the place to set it is inside the Pentagon, not on the Senate floor and live on CNN.

Killing Serials

2006-11-27T09:33:00.000-08:00

Item: ABC has announced that it's pulling the Wednesday night drama "The Nine" off the year. It may return later in the season, but the low-ratings yank is almost surely a death sentence for the show.
Despite my fondness for ensemble dramas, I took only a passing interest in this show, missing nearly all the episodes. It is a knockoff of its lead-in show, "Lost," which is also losing my interest. What's killing both those shows is an inherent catch-22 problem with suspense-driven shows. The producers want to hook you and keep you hooked by drawing out plot details as long as possible. But they know that once they satisfy viewers' curiosity, they'll lose them in droves.
Hence the problem with "Lost." I'm losing my patience. I strongly suspect the creators never envisioned the show going this far when they wrote the pilot, and so never thought this dar in advance. Now they're grasping at straws trying to keep it going without bringing the story to a conclusion: i.e. the plane crash survivors either get rescued or killed or figure out they're all hallucinating.
Good writers know how to continue building suspense with multiple, layered and staggered plot lines, so that just as one secret is revealed another mystery unfolds. You see it on soap operas every day (I used to watch them). These folks on "Lost" and "The Nine" and "Kidnapped" and some of the other serial shows haven't mastered that skill.
"Lost" continues to be a hit, probably because enough people are dying to figure out what's really going on on that island. But it's not surprising that the knockoff shows have fallen flat, since there is only so much suspense people can take week afetr week without gratification.

Joe Lieberman's Failings

2006-08-03T13:18:00.000-07:00

After spending the day on Joe Lieberman's campaign trail Monday, my opinion of him has never been more mixed. By all accounts, he's done a fine job looking out for the interests of his constituents, and that's why they've sent him to the Senate despite a position or two, especially on world affairs, that are largely out of step with New England Democrats.
Lieberman has spent his career trying to craft the image of a man of principle and conscience. But to me, has come across more as an opportunist.
After two unsucessful national campaigns, Lieberman has, as the New York Times put it in endorsing his opponent Ned Lamont, become the Bush administration's leading Democratic yes man. In my view, he clearly did this not out of principle but in the hopes of, at this late stage in his career, being named director of Homeland Security, the CIA or to the UN post that went to John Bolton. Unfortunately for Joe, Bush decided it would be more fun to leave Joe twisting in the breeze. I'd speculate that the president deliberately kissed Lieberman in front of the cameras after his 2005 state of the union to taint his re-election, but that would be giving too much credit to a man who has shown almost no aptitude for foresight and planning.
Regardless, Lieberman's now left in the position of having given his Democrat opponent enough ammunition to, if not blow Lieberman out of the water, at least leave him listing severely to port(that is, to the right.) In the best scenario, Joe pulls off the nomination, trounces the nobody Republican and goes back to The Hill for another six years. But he's damaged goods, and twice as many sharks, smelling blood, will be circling in 2012 if Joe runs again. Those could well include Ned Lamont in a rubber match.
Lieberman has made history as the first Jew on a major party national ticket, but his best days are behind him. I feel sorry for him because, by all accounts, he has performed admirably in looking out for the interests of his constituents. Too bad he didn't, in the end, prove very adept at looking out for himself.

The Utility Of Blaming Con Ed

2006-08-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

I can't help feel a bit of sympathy for the people at Con Edison as they struggle with the humongous and unenviable task of trying to keep millions of air conditioners running in this heat without any interruptions. That's in addition to the usual lights, refigerators, computers and billions of other devices in this increasingly wired world.
A news item today says a United Nations committee agrees with Al Gore, the earth is getting hotter, get used to it. That creates a vicious cycle: We're less comfortable so we need more energy to cool us which creates more pollution and more warming. Why does it seem not enough people see this as a problem? But that's for another post.
A group of Queens politicians has been having a field day calling for something just short of the public flogging of Con Ed CEO Kevin Burke because of the power outage that left thousands of homes dark for more than a week. I don't take that situation lightly (pun unintended) and many people suffered personal misery and severe economic hardship.
It may very well be that Burke or someone in his chain of command was asleep at the switch and that's what led to the crisis. But the rush to judgment is staggering. The Queens pols make the valid point that the company was initially slow in assessing the problem. But given that the company, under the harshest public scrutiny, still can't account for what happened, unless there is a major coverup, the utility is clearly dealing with something that never happened before.
The problem with the unpredictable is that, by nature, there is no way to plan for it. That's why 9-11 was effective and devastating. No one except the warped minds of the terrorists could conceive of such a plan beforehand, much less stave it off.
In the case of this blackout and the others that will very likely come in the future as we strain the grid to the breaking point, the priority is to get facts and analyze them. There's plenty of time for blame later. Imagine a ship that's taking on water and the entire crew scrambling to figure out whose job it was to check for water and how to punish him, rather than first plugging the leak.
We're in a crisis not too different than that now, with our lives now so completely dependent on electricity. The last thing we need is to draw the focus of the people whose jobs it is to keep the power on away from that job, to worry instead about whose going to be yelling at them when things go wrong.

Bigotheart

2006-08-03T12:01:00.000-07:00

Don't drink and drive is only the most obvious message that comes out of the recent arrest and humiliation of Mel Gibson. (With the half-billion he made off the "Passion," he couldn't hire a limo for the night and drink to his heart's content?)

With all that grog in his system the former "Road Warrior" could have killed someone doing 80 mph+ on the Pacific Coast Highway. If you're drunk enough not to be thinking about what's coming out of your mouth while you're ranting against war-hungry Jews, it's hard to imagine you can judge the space between yourself and the semi in the next lane very well, or slow down enough on a sharp turn so as not to jump the divider.

Mel faces community service, license suspension, a 12-step program and (gasp!) a steep fine for the drunk driving rap. But getting out of the bigger predicament will take some doing. With Ken Lay dead, Bush jokes getting tired, Britney Spears now using the proper child-seat in her car and Michael Jackson laying low in that Arab country, the late-night TV writers are looking for a new foil. Before this happened Jay Leno was down to making fun of gas-remedy commercials.

Now, expect a good 4-6 weeks of Mel jokes. More when his next movie comes out.

But as anyone's Jewish uncle might say, couldn't happen to a nicer guy. I honestly wasn't convinced during the whole Passion of the Christ affair that Mel was an anti-Semite, or just someone who used anti-Semitism to make a buck, get popular with people who are anti-Semites, or to please his anti-Semitic dad, any of which are just as bad.

But Mel does indeed appear to have been poisoned by his Holocaust-denying Dad. If so, it's sad to know that the seeds someone plants in the mind of an innocent child so long ago can continue to sprout so many years later (Mel's in his 50s). Having lived his life to the fullest, Mel has surely had enough experiences and met enough people to have overwritten those damaged circuits with better ones that teach you not to judge people collectively or buy into sterotypes. Mel works in Hollywood, and let's face it: Jews have tremendous influence there, although it's individually and not as part of the nefarious cabal imagined by Jew-phobic conspiracy theorists. Mel's career has undoubtedly benefitted from personal and professional relationships with Jews that have contributed to his enormous success as an actor, director and producer. That makes us wonder: What's he so upset about? Is his animus about Jews based on personal experience?

Does he know something the rest of the world doesn't? If he does, instead of an apology, why not offer an explanation, and let the rest of the world judge him not by the late-night jokes but by what's in his heart. Not that there's any excuse for bigotry, but it would be enlightening to know the backstory of how Mel got to this place in his life, lest we assume he's nothing more than a shallow, loudmouthed jerk.

Bloomberg's Ego In '08

2006-07-12T06:25:00.000-07:00

One of the most persistent stories in the New York press these days is the guessing game about whether Mike Bloomberg will run for president. We have so come to take politicians' statements at face value that a firm unambiguous denial, such as that of Hillary Clinton in 2004, Condoleeza Rice this year and Bloomberg earlier this year does little to stop the feverish speculation. My guess is it is largely a product of political reporters who are under pressure from their editors to fill up the pages. Maybe that's why Bloomberg's two-minute meeting with President Bush on the tarmac at JFK airport resulted in days of speculation, wherein even the color of Bloomgerg's tie was the subject of tea-leaves reading.
My firm suspicion is that Bloomberg initially intended, as he told me in a 2003 interview, to retire and spend his senior years living the good life while giving away perhaps billions of dollars to charitable causes. Not a bad life. But the success of his 2005, no-expense spared campaign has him obviously rethinking . And with a political advisor, Kevin Sheekey, who has gotten rich off him seeing multiple dollar signs in a national campaign -- imagine the $80 million spent in New York multiplied across 50 states -- the ego that drove Bloomberg to run for mayor is obviously wondering how far this wave can carry him.
There's a reasonably good chance that Bloomberg is just having fun with the speculation, enjoying how the media reads into his every pronouncement. And being seen as ambitious and upwardly mobile serves his political ambitions by saving him from being a lame duck.
Then again, when Bloomberg sells his media empire he'll become one of the richest men in the world, and his unbridled ability to spend and encouragement from his amen corner could make a Bloomberg 08 campaign a reality.

Rockets' Red Scare

2006-07-06T08:31:00.000-07:00

Sure it's scary that the North Koreans are playing with bombs. But before we get out of control, Iraq-style, it's of primary importance to assess one thing that we ought to have the right think-tank experts on hand to be able to assess, or we're in big trouble.
That is, does Kim Jong-Il want to die?
It's a simple enough question. Because he is surely intelligent enough to know that lobbying any kind of missile at the United States will result not just in his downfall, but his death, too, as we would certainly level Pyongyang in retaliation. Mutual assured destruction has been the law of the earth for almost 60-years now, and it's held up primarily because the one power who can throw us into a long nuclear winter, Russia, is a thriving civlized culture that wants to survive. The question is whether the same thing can be said for both North Korea and Iran. Is their hatred of and paranoia over America driving them crazy enough to open Pandora's box.
The paranoia part of it is particularly intriguing. For all the highly paid talking heads on CNN the other day, it was an unknown e-mailer whose comment was read during "The Situation Room" who made the most insightful observation.
The question is not whether we are taking a strong enough stand against Iran and North Korea, the observer wrote, but whether our president declaring these countries part of an axis of evil, then invading part of that axis, is what's driving them to behave this way in the first place.'
A question well worth pondering.

Giuliani Wisdom

2006-06-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

"I don't know who was responsible for it ..."
Those are the words of Rudolph W. Giuliani, now one of the world's highest paid consultants on global affairs and security, author and lecturer on leadership, America's mayor and post-9/11 icon.
The erstwhile mayor, it seems, can't figure out who was responsible for the assessment of the Department of Homeland Security that New York needs $80 million less in federal money to safeguard against terrorism. After a brief silence on the matter, Rudy told The Daily News Monday that "whomever they entrusted this to made a very big mistake."
I haven't read Giuliani's book, "Leadership," but I'd venture to guess that in it he espouses the widely accepted notion that the guy at the top is ultimately responsible for the work of his underlings. The lesser-paid working stiffs at The Post and Daily News have no trouble figuring out where to direct their ire, nor does Giuliani's successor, Mayor Bloomberg, who spent an hour on the phone with Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff to discuss the cuts. The newspapers are calling on readers to send angry postcards and faxes to Mr. Chertoff, who once worked for Giuliani at the Justice Department. Higher up the ladder, President Bush, who put Chertoff in charge of Homeland Security -- and for whom Giuliani professes to have thanked God on 9/11 -- may also fall in for some criticism by an honest observer.
Yes, of course, the former mayor is being diplomatic by not criticizing his old friend directly, and also trying not to shut doors in his own party that he will need open for his likely presidential campaign. But that's hardly what we should expect from the bedrock of courage that emerged after 9-11. What kind of leader of the free world would Giuliani make when he can't even lash out directly against a figure in his own party for a boneheaded, political decision that hurts his own former city.
Re-read your own book, Rudy, before you hit the 2008 campaign hustings. Real leadership means telling it like it is, straight talk, no matter how inconvenient it may be.

Depths Of Self-Destruction

2006-05-31T19:21:00.000-07:00

Watching the "Dateline NBC" expose on sexual predators, in which men who solicit sex with minors are lured by an actress and then confronted and arrested, is a deeply disturbing experience.
What struck me most was the level of recklessness displayed by these men. Quite a few created screen names that included their year of birth, such as 1951, in one case, while seeking out girls who said they were 14. The inescapable conclusion is that they clearly, on some subconscious level, want to be caught. There is no greater stigma in today's society than that of the child molester, and appropriately so. And yet somehow that doesn't deter these depraved people from sinking into this crime.
It has to be something more than just low intelligence. More likely a deep compulsion to not only take part in the crime but to be punished for it.
None of this is to suggest that the punishment of these dangerous people should be diminished one iota. They need to be stopped.
If the Dateline NBC series has effect of deterring these predators through the specter of notoriety and shame, the show has done a great public service. Still, in today's society it should already be obvious to anyone that there is no expectation of privacy on the Internet and that law enforcement is aggressively on the lookout to protect minors, and yet this crime persists. It may well be that, for some, the need for self-destruction is so overpowering that the element of risk only adds to, not detracts from the allure.

I Wish I Lived In The "West Wing" America

2006-05-08T07:29:00.000-07:00

For the past seven years, "The West Wing" has been probably the cheesiest show on network television: often cliched, clearly idealistic and liberal-biased.
And yet I can't get enough of it. The reason is clear: I'm a cheesy idealist.
I love watching these characters who actually live to make an impact on the world toil in the White House to actually formulate and change policy, rather then simply get re-elected, drive opinion polls up and reaward special interests. Up until the finale Sunday on NBC, I always got a bloodrush in the opening when some heated discussion in the corridors segued into that wonderfully grandiose theme music accompanying the Seal of the President and photos of Air Force One and the White House.
Needless to say, Martin Sheen's fictional President Jed Bartlett, a Democrat, is a far better president than most of us have seen in our lifetimes, fiercely compassionate, generally non-partisan and, most of all, effective and exceedingly competent. His worst scandal, for which he was nearly impeached,e involved concealing from the public that he suffered from multiple sclerosis during his re-election (a malady that seems to have disappeared this season).
I watched the second-to-last episode episode of "TWW" on the same day that Steve Bridges, the comedian who has nailed down a dead-on impression of George W. Bush, appeared for nearly half of "Meet The Press" with Tim Russet, talking about how he has cornered the market on comic Bush bashing. Bridges was even invited by the Real Mccoy to appear in a sketch at the White House Correspondent's dinner. The real president attempted to show what a great sense of humor he has, but he clearly looked uncomfortable as Bridges dropped his satirical bombs.
In other words, the best this president can do is show that he's a good sport as he becomes an international laughing stock with a basement approval rating, his administration crippled by war damage and scandals. About the only good news that comes out of the White House these days is cyclical stuff like the jobless rate dropping.
Meanwhile, in the Hollywood West Wing, President Bartlett's term is up and the nation, in a squeaker more akin to 2004 than 2001, has elected another Democrat, a longshot named Matt Santos who is even more fantasy-politics than his predecessor. Santos, as played by Jimmy Smits, is not only our first Latino chief executive but he's so bipartisan that he taps his former Republican rival to be secretary of state.
Starting in the middle of the Clinton administration, TWW creator Aaron Sorkin could have easily produced a cynical show that feasted on the foibles and vanity of the Beltway. Such a show might have even been more entertaining and a bigger ratings draw, especially if he tried to "rip from the headlines" the way the homicide dramas do.
He chose instead to create an alternate reality that has made millions of Americans tune in and ask "what if ..." Once the show is over, viewers are left to ponder whether or not he did us a favor.

Clearing The Air On Passover

2006-04-11T14:43:00.000-07:00

This is an actual press release I received by e-mail:

[italics added]

Dear Adam,
Those big family Seders and stacks of matzo we enjoy at Passover have an unspoken dark side—one that’s among society’s last taboos: the flatulence that results from gastrointestinal distress.
Instead of reflecting on the Jewish people’s exodus from Egypt, we end up struggling to contain the exodus of gas.
Flatulence, irritable bowels, heartburn, indigestion, and growling guts are common Passover conditions that can be treated without polluting our bodies with antacids and other over-the-counter drugs that, for many people, don’t even work.
Interview Bill Downs, one of the world’s foremost experts on diet and digestion, and find out how Jewish families can avoid Passover eating hazards—especially certain holiday foods and treats that have seriously adverse effects on dieters and diabetics.
Bill can provide a wealth of suggestions that will help families keep their taste buds and their digestive systems happy and healthy during (and after!) their big Passover Seder. Downs has over 20 years of expertise in diet, digestion, nutrition science, and biological chemistry.
He’s also published several peer-reviewed studies, and is the author of the Trafon blog (Trafon.org), the first blog to tackle the last taboo: serious, open discussion about why we ‘fart’, and the root causes of digestive disorders, gastrointestinal diseases, and what people can do about it.
Downs can also discuss:
* The common ingredient in sugar-free chocolates, candies, drinks, and foods that plagues diabetics and dieters with severe gas, cramping, and diarrhea
* What Passover foods are most likely to cause indigestion, and why
* Why people tend to get gassy around major holidays
* What’s the best way to tell someone they have offensive gas
* How to survive holiday feasts without over-stressing your digestive system
* The biochemical processes that cause indigestion
* How to control indigestion over the long-term
* What causes flatulence (farting)
* Why farts are funny to everyone except the person suffering with them
* Why some foods cause GI distress in some people, but not all people
To arrange an interview with Bill, call Jackie Zima at 610-642-8253 x138, or write to Jackie@GregoryFCA.com.
Thank you for your consideration!

Moving Violation Fine: $90. Insurance Surcharge: 25 Percent. Beating The Ticket In Court: Priceless

2006-04-10T13:11:00.000-07:00

Had the rare and unique experience today of successfully beating a traffic ticket. It was on the merits, and my faith in the justice system (at this lowest rung in the ladder) is renewed. Initially it was less than satisfying because the officer in question, a tunnel cop, happened to have been pretty nice about the whole thing, not one of those bad attitude cops we so often hear about or have the misfortune of encountering.
Accordingly, I immediately began my defense by saying I had no quarrel with the officer, who was doing his duty, but rather with inappropriate and misleading signage at the scene. My hope was that once I demonstrated that I was not challenging the cop's credibility, which I had neither motive nor basis to do, he would back off and not contest my account of the signage.
But apparently court is by its very nature confrontational, no matter how small the stakes.
When I presented photo evidence that the sign in question was not a "no left turn sign" as he declated but in fact an ambiguous combination symbol suggesting both no left turns and no u-turns, this cop had to admit that there is no other signage specifically barring no left turn. This was a temporary sign erected by the DOT because of construction, he said. This actually bolstered my case: Clearly this sign was erected in haste and without proper forethought.
Then when I demonstrated an even more ridiculous sign that actually points arrows in the direction of the illegal turn, the cop insisted this sign was for traffic from the other direction and not visible from the point at which I turned. The photo convincingly argued otherwise.
I never held it against this cop that he wrote the ticket. That's his job. And traffic stops may easily lead authorities to criminals with outstanding warrants, contraband in their vehicle or foul play at hand. More power to him for pulling me over. I don't claim to be singled out or picked on. My beef was purely with the signage, and the judge wisely concurred that the beef was genuine.
Still, I don't know why this cop was so busy defending the ticket: what difference does it possibly make to him? It's not like an armed felon getting off the hook to menace the public. I suppose any cop in a courtroom sees his authority challenged, even when the defendant isn't disputing any of his actions. It takes some effort and magnanimity to say he was only doing his sworn duty.
Therefore I must admit a certain sense of satisfaction when he brooded out of the courtroom, defeated. Score one for justice, and against dogmatic prosecution.

The Flip Side Of Miracles

2006-03-30T08:55:00.000-08:00

Two amazing events unfolded on CNN this morning.
First came word that Jill Carroll, the American reporter held captive in Iraq, had been freed by the insurgents who kidnapped her more than three months ago. Truly a joyous outcome considering the grisly fate of some of the others held captive in the Middle East and Afghanistan in recent years.
A short while later came a press conference marking the release of Randy McCloy from a West Virginia hospital. Randy is the sole survivor of the infamous Sbago mine disaster in which 11 of his fellow miners lost their lives. This shaken young man, who may suffer debiliation for the rest of his life from his ordeal, was able to walk up to the microphones and thank the public for all their good wishes, shaken and weak but so much stronger than when he was rescued, clinging to life.
In both cases the word miracle was freely tossed around, and rightly so. I felt a moment of exhiliration I hoped would boost me as I went about my day. Then came the "back down to earth" realization that miracles are only special because they are rare. For every Jill Caroll there are the Nick Bergs and Daniel Pearls who are savagely murdered, and for Randy McCloy there are legions of men and women who never make it home from their day at work, whether it be at a mine or aboard a plane or in a building like the World Trade Center.
When I heard the report (ultimately false) late that awful night about the 11 miners being rescued alive after hours of being trapped with virtually no air I literally jumped out of my chair. But the eventual result was far more likely and probably would have garnered less reaction.
What is a miracle, after all, but beating the odds, and what is our reaction, other than clinging to hope that the odds will always be in our favor.

Deconstructing Tony

2006-03-22T19:26:00.000-08:00

Like millions of others, I'm addicted to "The Sopranos," so much so that I must catrch every episode during its first airing -- although its repeat all week -- to avoid hearing details from the media or friends.
A key to this show's success is clearly the great casting and fine acting, particularly by the male and female leads, James Gandolfini and Edie Falco as Tony and Carmela Soprano. But there's something more here. Why are millions of people tuning in (can you call cable viewing tuning in?) to watch the travails of a depressed mobster, his family and associates.
Myself, whenever I watch Tony Soprano go about his business I find my radar searching for some shred of decency on display. Here is a man who is a sociopathic homicidal criminal. And yet he's concerned about his family and friends, and at turns has showed compassion at odd junctures, for a dead racehorse or a murdered prostitute. Far from black and white, Tony is a complex character, and thus unpredictable. TV viewers can love a character or hate him, but if he doesn't regularly surprise them or make them think, the channel will be changed (especially in an era when there are so many hundreds to choose from).
As fascinating though he may be, few people would actually want to be in Tony Soprano's volatile orbit. That's another reason I think the show is so successful. We like our mayhem from a safe distance: Watching a shark chew on beachgoers, or the Titanic sink, Freddy Kruger running rampant, or Tony's mob whacking a deadbeat satisfies some inner craving for danger without consequence, that same craving that puts us on roller coasters.

Pay No Attention To The Man Behind Howard Stern

2006-01-11T12:36:00.000-08:00

I had an opportunity to be in the studio this week during Howard Stern's maiden broadcast on satellite radio. I rarely listened to his show on K-Rock and certainly won't shell out the cash to hear him now. But watching him at work, I was fascinated by the man as a character study.
Stern was immensely wealthy at his old job and is now being compensated more than half a billion dollars, including stock options, by Sirius satellite for his work. It's a risky venture to be sure, and Sirius may well regret it if more of Stern's airwave audience doesn't switch over to satellite.
You usually have to be a pretty bold and shrewd businessman to come across that kind of money. But Howard Stern is as much a right-place-at-the-right-time personality as there ever was. With a few outlandish pranks and a determination to have no shame, Stern gathered an audience fed up with political correctness and rode it all the way to the top, with only a few small bumps in the road, like getting fired from WNBC in the 80s, which proved to be a blessing. How much more fortunate is the collection of characters with even less talent than his who have hitched their wagons to him and traveled to a succession of better jobs?
Listening to Stern, he is obviously an intelligent man who can have a discussion about current events. In a moment of unscripted candor Monday, he went off on the religious right, decried anti-Semitism and the plight of US soldiers in Iraq and made some very valid points.
But what has made Stern successful is not his insight or even his sense of humor or outlandishness. Having observed him for more than an hour of airtime, I noticed that perhaps 60-70 percent of what he had to say was appearing on a video screen in front of him as someone behind him, whose identity I do not know (is Jackie The Joke Man still with him?) scribbled wisecracks and transmitted them to him. That makes Stern essentially a half-billion dollar puppet.
Why is that different than the late-night comics who read from cue cards or actors who read other people's scripts? I'm not sure, but something definitely is different about it. A radio personality should be precisely that, a personality. Letterman and Leno have gag writers, but it's their ability to banter with the guests and audience that put them on top.
When Stern's show went to a commercial break and he took off his headphones, a change seemed to come over him. He was suddenly more ... normal. He stood up and exchanged pleasantries with reporters in the room, then excused himself to go to the bathroom. The edge was gone. Plenty of stars are completely different off-screen than on. It just strikes me that the kind of succes Stern has enjoyed should have at least something to do with who he is and what's inside of him instead of simply his ability to read off a video screen.

Playing Both Sides Of The "War On Christmas"

2006-01-11T12:26:00.000-08:00

Each Christmas season, New York radio station 106.7, "Lite FM" probably sets the annual record for most daily plays of "Jingle Bell Rock." The station goes wall-to-wall Chirstmas music during the season, sacrificing its usual mellow oldies and soft-rock format. That's their right. They've obviously decided it's profitable.
Now that we're in post-Christmas mode, the station is running a TV promo in which a Christmas tree crashes through a closed window and lands on the sidewalk below. "We're back" to the usual format, they boast.
In other words, stoke the holiday sentiment in its time, then play to the bah-humbug and fed-up crowd when it won't make you any more cash. It only goes to show how the true religious signifigance of the holiday has been siphoned off by pure, secular capitalist greed.

Is ‘Thug’ Racial?

2005-12-27T08:22:00.001-08:00

In his haste to appear outraged over the recent transit strike, Mayor Bloomberg last week referred to the TWU leaders who organized the walkout as “thuggish.” Some have said the term is racially charged and stereotypical since the union is predominantly minority.
I agree the term is inappropriate, since the strike – although illegal and very arguably unecessary – was a peaceful demonstration and did not call for or in any way lead to violence. Webster defines thug as a cutthroat, ruffian or gangster, all violent people.
If we were to define all conduct which could be construed as bullying or imposing as thuggish, might that also include spending $75 million in a political campaign to drown out a rival’s message, while wooing away possible contributors to the cash-strapped rival? The term is without question hyperbolic in either usage.
But is it racially charged in the case of the strikers? To answer that, let’s not forget that while whatever number of the striking workers may belong to minority groups, so too do an equal or larger number of those inconvenienced by the strike, and the good mayor was trying to vent his spleen on their behalf. Two weeks prior, in a completely different context, the head of the police union, Patrick Lynch, referred to a cop shooting suspect on two occasions as a “skel” and a “mutt.” Lynch is white, the suspect black. There was no outrage. Probably because the victim, on whose behalf he was rightly indignant, was black as well. Context, after all, is everything.

Hillary's Luck

2005-12-14T07:55:00.000-08:00

It's hard to imagine a better dream-come-true for a candidate:
An opponent steps forward with a solid record, but a stature gap. She stumbles on her first day, then keeps on stumbling. And then her own party tries to pull the rug out from under her.
Short of facing Pee Wee Herman next year, Hillary Clinton couldn't have asked for a better break. By undercutting Westchester DA Jeanine Pirro, the New York Republicans are trying to make sure she doesn't have a serious race next year that could bring out a strong Democratic base, particulalrly upstate, and aid Democratic candidates for the state Senate, where the GOP is holding onto a narrow lead. A serious race would also bring Hillary lots of good press and boost her prospects for the 2008 presidential race.
With the one solid finisher the New York Republican party has, George Pataki, now setting sights on the national stage (can you say "pipe dream"?) it's going to be a great year for the Democrats, who have strong chance to sweep all four statewide offices and control both houses of the legislature.

The Height Of Hypocrisy ...

2005-12-14T07:17:00.000-08:00

... Now has a new definition.
The New York Post, home of one of the most right-wing editorial pages in the nation, has been ranting to the masses about the horror of too much gun violence on the streets. The primary blame, it seems, must be laid at the feet of Democrats like state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has declined to pass legislation for tougher sentencing of criminals convicted of gun violence.
This from the paper that has endorsed the nation's most conservative, pro-gun candidates for president and every other office down the line, and still can't find the sense in passing anti-gun legislation.
There is certainly no harm in passing tougher sentencing laws -- the more time violent thugs spend in jail, the better off we are -- except that it's a placebo. When violent gun crime, like the incidents that killed two NYPD officers this month -- happens it unfolds on the blink of an eye, usually while the perpetrators are involved in another crime and evading capture, or high on drugs. In neither case are the criminals likely to reason that it's better to give up than open fie out of concern for a longer jail sentence. Criminals simply aren't reasonable folks.
It's disingenuos and morally wrong to pretend there is some way to make a dent in gun violence other than taking the damn guns off the street. If you want to play with sentences, then increase the jail time for gun traffickers, who do have the time and reason to think about consequences. And the longer the dealers are in jail, the less guns they'll spread.
It only takes a fraction of a second for an adrenaline-charged finger to pull a trigger, while the consequences are forever. With fewer guns on the street, violent criminals will still be violent. But their ability to cause permanent harm will be drastically reduced.

Spielberg Takes On The Mossad

2005-12-13T11:18:00.000-08:00

Perennially overrated director Steven Spielberg, who has had a few good hits like "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan" and a lot of stinkers like "The Terminal" and "Catch Me If You Can," is under fire from the Israeli diplomatic corps here and a lot of ex-Mossad agents for his new film about the revenge killings of Palestinians who murdered Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. (I'm not sure it was ever fully determined if the terrorists or the bumbling German police fired the fatal shots, but the terrorists are ultimately to blame for setting the events in motion).
I haven't seen Spielberg's film and as of this writing few people have. But the discussion ahead is sure to be fascinating because it touches on Israel's ongoing quest to maintain what it calls "the purity or arms" while conducting itself as one of the mightiest armed powers in the world. Its policy of targeting those it deems terror leaders for assasination continues today, and it's fascinating to debate whether this is a wise policy or just smart politics by Israel's government to mollify the public after a terror attack.
This film will surely fuel that debate, which is made more relevant now that the U.S. is engaged in its own war on terror. I doubt too many people would pen letters of outrage if we were able to get a cruise missile into Osama Bin Laden's cage.
Bin Laden is in fact a textbook argument for such a policy. Like his Hamas and Islamic Jihad counterparts, he's a coward who stays out of danger and makes radical pronouncements while dispatching other people -- usually misguided young people -- to do his dirty work. Then when all hell breaks loose he hides like a kid who threw a snowball. Such people need to know that they are not outside the fray, and that the death and destruction they unleash against others could come calling on their doorstep at any time. Men like Sheikh Yassin, the erstwhile Hamas leader and at least one of his succesors learned that the hard way. No line should be drawn between the suicide bomber and his dispatcher. Both are combatants.
But however satisfying it is to hear that such a dispatcher -- or in the case of the Munich thugs, the perpetrators-- were themselves dispatched, there is the cold reality that such actions do nothing to prevent future terrorism. Israel can attest to that. While it certainly disrupts the terrorist infrastructure -- how many people would answer an ad for Hamas leader these days -- in the long run those close to the assassinated person are only more resolute.
That is not an argument against such reprisals, just a reality check. Just as the death penalty has never proven to be a deterrent to murder, these killings are probably more effective as a punishment and than a long-term remedy. But punishment is justification enough.
Yet also like the death penalty, we have to take into account the law of unintended consequences. Capital punishment has been banned in many parts of our country because of the possibility of error, as evidenced by the number of people exonerated through DNA testing in reopened cases. If juries and judges can make mistakes, how much more so is a general in the field prone to error when he relies on intelligence data from people who are coerced or bribed. And what of those who die as a result of collateral damage, who are unquestionably innocent. Are their lives less valuable than those we seek to protect by thwarting terror attacks.
All these questions have plagued Israel, from 1972 to today. This is not the first film to deal with the Munich-revenge plot. An excellent 1986 miniseries, "The Sword of Gideon," starring Steven Bauer also treated the subject, and I recall the moral quandary of the characters.
One ex-Mossad leader said in an interview about the Spielberg film that it was unrealistic to portray a Mossad agent in the film as troubled enough about his assignment that he quit and was pursued by his handler. "One of the best parts of the Mossad is that if you have anything on your mind, you can come and speak out. It does not have to develop into a problem," Gad Shimron, a former Mossad field operative turned journalist told Reuters.
More likely, it doesn't develop into a problem because Mossad so heavily screens its agents, especially assasins, that those troubled by these kinds of moral issues never make it into the field. Intelligence agencies, especially those fighting for the survival of a nation, can't afford the touchy-feely stuff.
Some say Spielberg is trying to use his film as a vehicle for the idea that an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind, a notion completely antithetical to counterterrorism. But it serves us all well to have a moral discussion about both the moral rectitude and the efficacy of state-sponsored retribution. Just by having that discussion we demonstrate what separates us from the terrorists.

What Rosa Parks Did For Us

2005-11-02T08:43:00.000-08:00

In one of those amazing coincidences in life, Rosa Parks came up in a conversation around the dinner table one night last week, in the context of explaining to my kids about how one person can be the cause of tremendous change in the world. My wife wondered if she was still alive, and I said I believed she was.
Her obituary was in the next day's paper, having died perhaps right around the time we were pondering her legacy.
There are people in life known for accomplishments that take hours, days, months, years or even a lifetime, and then there are those who have caused tremendous change -- for better or worse -- with a single act. Rosa Parks spent her life furthering the civil rights movement but she will best be known for an event that unfolded in a matter of minutes and the night she spent in jail because of it.
It has been said by some detractors that Rosa never meant to become an icon, that she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man for no better reason than being tired. That's hard to believe, especially when the consequences she faced began to materialize. More likely she was sick and tired of being treated like a second-class passenger although she paid the same fare as the white racist who felt better entitled to her seat. Most likely she was thinking not of herself but of thousands of others humiliated by such bigotry before her and millions of others after her who needed to be spared that indignity.
We have tended to refer to such historical figures as Parks and Martin Luther King and others as great African Americans or pivotal figures in black history, but in truth they are American heroes --people who made our country better for all by awakening our conscience. Obstructing racism is God's work, and it benefits not only the victims, but the perpetrartors as well.

'Six Feet Under' Moments

2005-10-31T08:45:00.000-08:00

One of the most interesting features of the wonderful, but recently ended HBO series "Six Feet Under" was the opening segments of each episode in which a person who is about to become a client of the fictional funeral home Fisher and Diaz meets his demise. These segments were often morbidly playful, especially when they involve people who will be done in by their own stupidity or neglect, like the baker who climbs into a dough mixer without cutting off the power or the guy who leans out of his car to pick up the paper, falls out and is crushed under his own SUV.
I was thinking of those moments while doing work around the house yesterday, and it suggested to me that the show's writers may have done thousands of viewers an unwitting service by teaching us to be more careful in our daily lives. Standing on a ladder in my garage, for example, I scanned the ground below for any sharp objects on which I could be impaled if I fell. How easy to picture myself with a rake sticking out of my guts as the screen fades to white and my birth and death dates flash in the screen.
I thought of those "Six Feet Under moments" again this morning when I heard the news about Kyle Lake, the 33-year-old pastor in Waco, Tex., an oterwise intelligent person by all accounts who died as a result of a moment of bad decision-making. Performing a Baptism while immersed in water up to his shoulders, Pastor Lake reached for a microphone, and was electrocuted as his followers looked on in horror.
The recent horrors of earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and suicide bomb onslaughts have surely brought home the message that all our planning, our hopes and dreams and aspirations can come to an abrupt end in the tragic blink of an eye. But a story like that of Pastor Lake and other "Six Feet Under" moments reminds us, as well, that despite all the long-term decisions and tough choices we make throughout our years, one seemingly insiginificant choice or decision or idea can turn out to be the most consequential act of our lives.

Proof Of God

2005-10-12T12:28:00.000-07:00

EREV YOM KIPPUR
A friend of mine whose opinions matter to me informs me that he has no plan to go to shul on Yom Kippur, he'll be working, and worked as well on Rosh HaShanah. He doesn't particularly believe in God, and even if he did, it would be hypocritical, he says, to change his behavior on one or two days a year to try to please Him.
I believe it's natural and totally acceptable to struggle with God, what He means and how he manifests Himself. God doesn't reveal Himself or overtly intervene in our lives-- stopping wars or genocide, thwarting hurricanes or earthquakes -- because h]He wants us to come to Him through logic and reason and not simply by rote training, although a majority of religious people today probably do the latter. Despite my own doubts I have never been able to dismiss the idea of God, despite many influential people I've met who are atheists.
The reason is clear: We choose the kind of world we want to live in, and in mine I can't accept a world spinning out of control, with no Divine intervention and human beings left to our own devices, like children left home alone with parents who will never return.
This is a logical as well as emotional point. Watch the news each day and ponder the ability of human beings to destroy ourselves and each other; the health and environmental risks we create and endure; the hatred we foment among ourselves; the destructive power we create and all too often harness.
It is now 60 years since the advent of the most destructive weapon ever created, and somehow it has only been used for war twice, and in a single conflict. Mankind now possesses more firepower than it would take to annihilate all life on this planet, and yet something has held us back from doing so. Not for lack of instinct. In 1963 two mighty fleets headed for a showdown in the Cuban missile crisis. Despite the savagery of the war that ended only eight years prior and the hatred and paranoia fueled for years on both sides, reason somehow prevailed, we are still here, and human endeavour for good is thriving, enough so that you are able to read this through a technology no one could have imagined 25 years ago.
There can't ever be absolute proof of God. But the fact that you and I are here today, somewhat against the odds, is to me a pretty good indication.

Wait Until Next Year?

2005-10-11T19:26:00.000-07:00

How depressing is the thought of a fifth straight season without a Yankee world series.
Sure, the Angels are a hot team with younger, more eager talent, but I can't help but wonder if the Yankees' overinflated payroll is having the opposite of its intended effect. When you're getting paid millions of dollars, win or lose, you still want that World Series ring, but I have to believe you aren't as hungry for it as the younger, lesser paid up-and-comers. When you have the means to buy anything you possibly can want in life and have change left over to leave your great-grandkids, I just don't think there's a fire in the belly. The same reason stand-up comics like Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy haven't made a funny movie in the past 20 years.
Wait till next year? Only if you drop the spoiled fatcats and hire some hungry talent whose battig average is higher than the first three numbers on their paycheck.

Tough Breaks

2005-10-02T17:59:00.000-07:00

Last week I covered the controversy over a column penned in a New Jersey Jewish journal by the psuedonymous SA Halevy. In one fell swoop Halevy managed to offend just about everyone that has anything to do with Israel, from the evacuated settlers of Gaza he says didn't fight hard enough to the Jewish organizations and rabbinic groups he believes rolled over to the dictatorial Sharon government.
There is much speculation that a particular rabbi in Teaneck known to express such sentiments was behind the article, but who wrote it is less interesting than what it represents. The very insightful sociologist Samuel D. Heilman told me how this is indicative of the crisis faced by many modern Orthodox, mostly young or middle aged Jews who are infatuated with the territory captured by Israel in 1967 and the people living there. That land seems to resonate for them so much more than the post-1948 boundaries, including Western Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, etc.
Professor Heilman is better qualified than me to say why this is, but it's easy to speculate. For one thing, the West Bank comprises much more of the territory discussed in the Bible. For another, the territory was seized by Israel in the Six-Day War, one of the biggest exercises of Jewish toughness since Joshua conquered Jericho. For so many people who were sick and tired of being sick and tired over the Holocaust, the lightning strikes that punished the Arabs for planning to attack Israel represented a redemption, if not a seismic shift in the way Jews felt and were perceived.
Gaza has virtually no connection to Biblical Israel. But it is part and parcel of that victory of biblical proportions. Clearly that's why so many were heartsick about its surrender. The post-67 notion that Jews could live anywhere they damn well please was epitomized in Gaza, where 8,000 lived in the midst of more than a million Palestinians. Giving it back signalled a potential withdrawal from the biblical lands -- even Jerusalem -- but it also meant backing down from the posture that Jews are finished backing down.
More than anything else, baby boomer Orthodox Jews and their subsequent generations want to feel tough and in control, not placid and vulnerable like the ill-fated generations before them. That's what motivates an SA Halevy to lash out at everyone who implemented, supported or didn't sufficiently oppose the Gaza pullout. He sees that shell-shocked Israel has ceased providing the macho, vicarious thrills of the Six-Day War, the Lebanon invasion and the Osirak reactor bombing, yielding instead the wimpy Oslo peace process and settler disengagement. And it scares the daylights out of him.

"Everything Is Illuminated"

2005-09-22T19:01:00.000-07:00

It's extremely rare for a film to live up to a book, and in the case of Jonathan Safran Foer's acclaimed first novel, "Everything Is Illuminated," it was an uphill battle from the start.
Foer's quirky book jumped back and forth through time from Trachimbrod, the 19th Century Ukrainian shtetel of his ancestry, to a modern day journey to find a woman there who may have saved his grandfather from the Nazis.
Foer's editors recognized that he is one of the most talented writers of his generation and therefore gave him free reign to narcisistically indulge his own talent. From the whimsical visits to the shtetel with its Upright Shul, where people daven while suspended from the roof, to the annual festival commemorating the drowing of a wagon driver and the heroine's marriage to a man with a saw blade embedded in his skull, Foer gave us a tour of a place too ludicrous to be real but yet to familiar to forget.
The contemporary story was filled with comic relief in the form of Alex, a Ukrainian tour guide who didn't mangle the English language (as critics said) as much as over-formalize it. ("Repose" instead of sleep, "proximal" instead of close.)
There was no way to translate all of Foer's talent onto the big screen, at least not in two hours. And so, writer and director Liev Schrieber did what most filmmakers do these days: Buy the brand identification and then do whatever the hell you want.
His film uses Foer's title and most of the same characters, as so many films based on old TV shows do these days, only to produce a film that bears almost no resemblance to its inspiration.
"Everything is Illuminated" will not be a bad film for those who haven't read the book. But those who have will find the story so truncated, and the pivotal ending so divergent, that they will feel they have seen a film loosely inspired by a small fragment of the book.
And yet the precise ending so closely approximates the book, it makes little sense given the drastic change in plot that Schrieber imposes, either for the sake of brevity or to make the film, in his view, more meaningful.
Foer's book sets up more of a conflict for Alex's grandfather, the old and bitter Ukrainian tour guide. He appears to be an anti-Semite at first. We later learn he had a Jewish best friend and had the chance to save him and didn't. Result: Guilt trip for life.
In the film, Schrieber has no time to set up the circumstances in a flashback of why the grandfather didn't save his friend, so he goes for a quick twist instead. Now the grandfather WAS a Jew who somehow was unscathed by a Nazi firing squad, and rises from a pile of corpses to doff his star of David and hide his identity the rest of his life. After visiting the site of Trachimbrod, he remembers all this and it's too much for him. He kills himself, ostensibly out of survivor guilt that has kicked in after 60 years, or simply become intolerable.
In the book he had far more reason to be guilty and far more reason to succumb to the guilt after reliving it, no longer able to repress the memory.
I suspect Schrieber saw another benefit to his retake: The crusty old man who came across like an anti-Semite was, in the end, a Jew. The message: We are the Jews, the Jews are us. The Holocaust is thus universalized.
I don't know if sticking to the original plot would have made a better movie, but as it is I was simply unmoved and unimpressed. I wonder how Jonathan Safran Foer feels about the change. If I were he, I'd simply revel in the crafting of a work of art incapable of being done justice in an inferior medium.

Israel Supporters Must Now Show Their True Colors

2005-08-17T17:19:00.000-07:00

I never thought I'd see the day when showing support for Israel in my mostly Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood would feel like an act of defiance.
But when I tied blue and white ribbons to the antenna of my car today, I briefly worried that I might end up with a broken window, or worse. Just yesterday I saw a kid nearly roughed up by passionate opponents of Ariel Sharon's Gaza pullout because he dared display a pro-disengagement sign at their rally.
I tied the ribbons to my car in response to numerous orange ribbons that have popped up on vehicles in recent weeks. Orange is the color chosen by Gaza Jewish settlers and their supporters to show solidarity and protest.
Like any sane supporter of Israel I have strong concerns about whether the disengagement or pullout or evacuation or expulsion -- whatever you choose to call it -- will improve or harm the security of the Jewish state. It certainly feels like rewarding the perpetrators of thousands of bloody terror attacks, while punishing the law-abiding citizens who endured those attacks. It's also shrinking the borders or an already tiny country, while getting nothing tangible in return. At least the Sinai was traded for a piece of paper with Anwar Sadat's signature.
But it would be the definition of chutzpah for me, who has never lifted a finger in Israel's defense despite spending considerable time there in my army-age youth, to second guess a general who has fought every war since the country declared its independence, and shed his own blood on the battlefield. Plain and simple, if this is a catastrophic mistake, its one for Sharon and the people who elected him to make.
Opponents of the Gaza pullout argue that Israel belongs to all the Jewish people, and its leaders must heed the concerns and dreams of those in the diaspora as well as those of their own electorate. But that rings hollow in a country with mandatory military service, where each citizen is required to physically back up the policies of the leaders they elect, and bear the costs of their mistakes. Non-Israelis do none of those things, no matter how much money we raise or trees we plant or summer vacations we spend there.
Jews and America and elsewhere who have stood fast against the pullout -- and polls show they are a minority -- are not wrong to express their grave reservations. But they are wrong to try to stifle those who stand by Israel's elected government. And they are wrong to presume that they can sit in Brooklyn or Teaneck or Baltimore or Toronto and tell Israeli soldiers what territory to fight and die for. Truly supporting Israel means backing all its citizens, not only the settlers but the leaders and soldiers, too, as they endure one of the most challenging ordeals in their history.
Whatever we think of the pullout, it's a done deal now. The orange ribbons have served their purpose. Israel is once again taking a massive chance for peace, as it did in the 90s when it trusted Yasir Arafat.
The way to show our hope that this time will turn out better is to display true, proud colors of Israel: Blue and white.

When Mets Collide

2005-08-17T11:02:00.000-07:00

It's easy to think of baseball players and other pro athletes as adults who get paid a fortune for playing essentially a kids' game for part of the year. And they are.
But last week's collision between center fielder Carlos Beltran and right fielder Mike Cameron of the Mets at a game in San Diego is another reminder that pro-sports can be a dangerous business. Your or I might not dive for a grounder at a friendly softball game the way these two went at it, but the stakes are much higher for them, especially when their team is struggling to get out of last place before they are eliminated from contention.
Wherever there are fast-moving objects, like balls or 200-plus pound outfielders, involved there is the danger of serious injury, and it's extremly fortunate neither ended up with a life- or career-threatening injury, although Cameron as of Wednesday remains hospitalized and Beltran, though anxious to get back on the field, may need facial surgery. An impact of that nature could easily result in a neck or spinal injury if not brain damage.
Worse than the physical damage is the mental harm to the way they'll play the game in the future. How can either one of these guys ever dive after a grounder again and keep their eyes on the ball, rather than their nearest teammates?
These guys deserve credit for working hard and taking risks, and it will be great to see them both back in action soon.

Pay Now Or Pay Later

2005-08-11T10:04:00.000-07:00

President Bush is to meet with his top security advisers today to discuss the situation in Iraq. "People always say to me, when are you going to bring the troops home," he said in a sound bite. "The answer is, as soon as possible. But not before the mission is completed."
That terminology couldn't help but summon up the image of the "mission accomplished" banner on the aircraft carrier where the President thanked the troops. What was it, about two years ago?
There's a saying among dentists and plumbers: Pay me now, or pay me later. Splurge for that expensive root canal or valve replacement now, or pay a more expensive price later for neglecting it.
Sooner or later we will have to face the reality of leaving Iraq without accomplishing very much at at all except for removing Saddam Hussein from power -- a seemingly goods result except when you consider that it cost the lives of 1,800 Americans and counting and tens of thousands of Iraqis we were supposed to be liberating, and that there is no way to ensure that a worse thug won't eventually rise to power.
The conflict in Iraq has essentially become a waiting game. The insurgents know that with every mass casualty attack our resolve weakens, and that's why they have launched their attacks not strategically, to weaken supply lines are disable air bases, but to inflict the highest death toll on the soldiers themselves. The insurgency grows stronger every day as a result.
If we acknowledge, as we must, that we will inevitably have to give up, the question then shifts to pay now or pay later. And later only amounts to the loss of more American lives.
Until now, I have felt that we have an obligation to the men and women who have died so far to continue the mission so that they will not have died in vain. That the real mission in Iraq was simply to stay the course, hold the forts and resist the impulse to run.
That was surely part of the rationale in Vietnam, too. We should now realize that our greater obligation is to the troops who have not yet died, and who will surely die if we stay, and to their families.
The only thing worse than making a mistake is failing to treat it like a mistake, failing to learn from it, and proceeding full ahead on the same mistaken course. Granted, if we pull out of Iraq under fire it will embolden our enemies, as it did after we left Beirut in the 80s and Somalia in the 90s.
There are two ways to address that. The first is to declare victory: Set a very public, very achievable goal that we can strive toward in the next few months -- say to put a certain number of trained police in place-- meet it and get out as ceremoniously as possible, not like the helicopter evacuation of Vietnam.
Second, make it clear to everyone, most of all ourselves, that we will do what every great people does and learn from our mistakes.
Israel's Ariel Sharon is no soft touch. For decades he was the most right-wing politician in the mainstream. And yet in his old age he has come to realize futility when he sees it, and to know that part of valor is knowing where to concentrate your troops. That's why he's letting go of Gaza as a necessary amputation to save the greater body. His loyalty is more to the 8,000 or so troops who have to defend this embattled territory than to the equal number of civilians who want to keep up the fight.
Our obligation to our own troops, and to ourselves, should be no less.

The Final Countdown?

2005-08-09T15:47:00.000-07:00

You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief when Discovery's troubled mission came to a happy end Tuesday morning with a textbook touchdown at Edwards AFB. Thus ended a mission in which nearly all the attention was focused on maintaining the mission, leaving open the question of what was gained other than launching the shuttle and retrieving it. Oh, yes. We also resupplied the equally questionable International Space Station.
The shuttles are grounded indefinitely while the rocket scientists at NASA (that sounds sarcastic even though it isn't) try to figure out why foam insulation keeps flying off the fuel tanks. Either this never happened before or people just didn't take it seriously before the Columbia disaster. That leaves open the question of whether these vehicles will ever be launched again. NASA is already talking about launching capsules into space again like in the 60s, the ultimate case of going back to the future.
I must admit that this morning I sat glued to the TV with my kids watching that glowing dot in the California sky morph into the shape of a shuttle and touch down so gracefully on the tarmac, coming from quadruple the speed of sound to a dead stop in a matter of minutes. All day today I was filled with awe. I guess it takes a catastrophe like Columbia to refocus us on what an incredible feat it is to safely launch people off the planet and then recover them safely, no worse for the wear. Over the years it had become so routine.
Nevertheless, the thrills in this case are too expensive. As I wrote below, this should be the final countdown. The risk of lost life and the billions of dollars wasted are too much to justify when there is no discernable benefit to those of us on the ground but to fire up our imagination and deceive us with the notion that we could one day travel far beyond our planet. It's impossible and the sooner we get a reality check on this the better off we'll all be for it.

Carville's Free Pass

2005-08-08T21:32:00.000-07:00

Commentator Bob Novak's been rightly condemned for his intemperate behavior on CNN last week, using a profane word on non-premium cable and storming off the set in the middle of a segment.
Mr. Novak was likely perturbed by forthcoming questions about his role in the CIA leak case in that interview. But watch footage in the segment and you'll see obscene behavior of another sort coming from the other commentator on the set that day, James Carville, aka the Ragin' Cajun.
Carville behaved like a boor by interrupting Novak in the middle of a point about a Senate race in Florida, and when Novak protested, Carville essentially challenged his manhood, insisting that Novak had to "show these right-wingers some kind of backbone, you know, the Wall Street Journal editorial page is watching you show them you're tough."
Novak should have brushed it off, but it was a cheap shot by Carville and lowered the discourse substantially, paving the way for Novak's expression of frustration. He deserves some credit: another man might have retorted with a similarly personal attack.
Sunday pundits had a field day making fun of Novak, who was given a time-out by CNN, which suspended him from its programs. But the network would have done well to send both these men to their rooms until they learn better behavior. Why let Carville off the hook for being a cheap-shot instigator?

Warm Hearts On A Cold Sea

2005-08-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

The Russian navy should feel no shame at having asked for international assistance in the rescue of a minisub crew stranded at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean off Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (a place we all know well.) An unmanned British vehicle freed the Russian sub after nearly three days in 45-degree darkness trapped by a fishing net, allowing all seven crew members to emerge in good health.
Some said the Russians had learned the lesson from the 2000 disaster in which more than 100 men died waiting to be rescued from the submarine Kursk in the Baltic Sea after an explosion sank her. But news reports said the authorities initially withheld the news of the imperiled sub until the mother of one of the sailors leaked (no pun) the story to a radio station. Only then did the government call for help from Japan, the United States and the British.
The Russians were surely concerned about protecting their military secrets, obviously a major factor in the Kursk incident (the cause of the explosion is still unclear). Wounded pride was probably an issue as well. Operating submarines is expensive, risky and complicated business and the Russians are struggling to keep their edge.
But the U.S. has had its share of sub disaster in recent years too, including the USS San Francisco, which smashed into an undersea mountain this year, and the USS Greenville, which collided with a fishing boat during a high speed surfacing a few years ago. Both incidents were deadly.
Considering the number of subs in the water and the thousands of brave crew who operate these ships, it's safe to conclude that the service is no more statistically deadly or risky than flying planes or launching space shuttles, or even driving on the highway. Accidents, however, are sadly inevitable. So there is no reason for the Russians to fear a perception of ineptitude.
Instead, they should be proud of the choice of placing their sailors' lives ahead of all other considerations. Submariners are a close-knit band of brothers, regardless of nationality, who surely do not hesitate to stick their necks out for each other, easily picturing themselves in a similar predicament but for the grace of God.
This incident should be remembered as a triumph and example of international cooperation at a time when it's badly needed.

Go Ahead, Search My Bag

2005-07-22T06:58:00.000-07:00

In the Times Square subway station yesterday I passed two cops who seemed to be warily eyeing my backpack. I felt like going over and volunteering to have them inspect it. Not only wouldn't I mind, it would have made me feel more comfortable about my journey.
The civil libertarians who are complaining about the NYPD's new strategy are doing their job, eyeing the slippery slope and being properly mindful of racial profiling. If they are concerned about the latter problem, let them organize teams of volunteers to discreetly monitor cops who are doing the searches and see if there is a problem.
My strong guess is that people carrying large, suspicious packages, or perhaps wearing heavy coats in the middle of summer, will draw the most scrutiny, not simply men who appear to be Arabs. Not only are the NYPD professional about threat-assessment, they have no interest in being sidetracked by bad publicity and/or lawsuits.
As to whether the searches are effective, I believe they are because suicide bombers are bascially cowards who shun any kind of conflict or engagement, preferring to blend into an unsuspecting crowd and detonate. The idea of being arrested and failing to accomplish their task probably scares the hell out of them.
Any subway rider should accept that even the worst inconvenience of being stopped, questioned and searched -- even as a matter of routine rather than at random -- is far better than the alternative of being less safe. Better to miss 10 trains than for the cops to miss one bomb.

Why I Love New York

2005-07-19T18:29:00.000-07:00

Tonight I listened to a Jamaican man on a subway platform play "Hava Nagila" on his steel drum. Show me another place in the world where that can happen and I'll move there.

Bloomberg's Phone Number

2005-07-18T11:27:00.000-07:00

Much was made last week about New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg's revelation that he has retained a publicly listed phone number since he was elected, and seems to have had it published in the white pages since he was CEO of his eponynous media company.
This is supposed to show that he's just a down to earth guy who, as he puts it, hasn't forgotten that he works for the people.
I haven't tried dialing up Mayor Mike at 10 p.m. to complain that my streetlight is out or to ask for an interview (although the latter notion is tempting.) But I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's likely 99.5 percent or more of the people who call his home number -- particularly since its listing has been publicized -- will get either a busy signal or a staff member of his East Side mansion picking up the phone. And if you think he doesn't have several other phone numbers unlisted, you're nuts. (If he wants to really show how accessible he is, let's see him give out his cell phone number.)
There's no shame in having an unlisted number when you're a celebrity or a public official or anyone in the public eye who cannot reasonably accomodate all those seeking a conversation with you. Go to any public event that the mayor attends and you will see how many people swamp him with questions, complaints and photo requests as he tries to get into his car. There are, after all, 8 million of us and one mayor.
Having met Bloomberg a few times I can say he is not a pretentious person and can be quite gracious and personable, not at all in the ego-vein of a Donald Trump, which is impressive since he is richer than Trump.
But it's riddiculous to pretend that he's somehow just another everyman because he rides the subway and has his number listed. Who wouldn't ride the subway when you have NYPD bodyguards surrounding you? And who wouldn't have his number listed when you have a staff to take messages? The vast majority of us 8 million don't have those amenities.
When rich people try to act like regular people, whether it's Bloomberg buying the $600 bicycle before a possible transit strike or President George H.W. Bush checking out the price code scanner in a supermarket, more often than not it's just a clumsy way of reminding us how irregular they are.

Scrap The Shuttles

2005-07-13T06:41:00.000-07:00

The government this week will resume spending billions of dollars launching people into space for not better reason then, well, launching people into space.
NASA and its shuttle program are the ultimate examples of self-perpetuating bureaucracy. We design and build spacecraft so we can test them and learn how to build better spacecraft. We carry out experiments in space to learn how well we can live in space to carry out more experiments.
Sure, it would be lovely to get to the point where we can travel to other planets and explore them, but the proponderance of scientific evidence is that, regardless of what you see on Star Trek, it will never be possible. Just getting to the closest planet, Mars would take months, and years to get anywhere else, and human beings probably couldn't survive very well in space for all that time, especially when we're prone to mishaps like Apollo 13 and the two shuttle disasters. Real astronauts know, and have said, that the faster-than-light-speed travel you see in the movies is a scientific joke.
Sure I'd like to know if there might be microbes on Mars or evidence of earlier life. I'd also like to see cancer, AIDS and other plagues cured in my lifetime, needless famine eliminated from the planet and the world weaned off the narcotic of oil for cleaner and more effective energy sources. Strip NASA down to watching the skies for perilous meteorites and launching a few robot probes a year to gather some space data and you've got billions to make a dent in some of those causes.
In 2003, seven Americans and an Israeli gave their lives aboard an aging spaceship (I wouldn't take a 22-year-old car on a long highway trip; how do we fly 22-year old shuttles into space?) for the cause of conducting a few meager experiments in space and testing out some new equipment. Unless there is a more classified purpose of the mission we haven't heard, the toll simply wasn't worth the potential gain.
The real reason we're so interested in space is hubris. It's the rocket's red glare of our days, those flaming behemoths soaring into the clouds that tell the rest of the world how mighty and impressive we are. Reaching for other planets has superpower written all over it.
But if we tried, we might find that eliminating a disease or two, making a dent in global warming (even acknowledging it!) and taking better care of the planet we're on might also win us an admirer or two.

Welcome To New York, Danny Graves

2005-06-14T19:21:00.000-07:00

Danny Graves was born in Vietnam, and grew up in Florida.
But he's got all the spirit of a native New Yorker.
When Graves, then a closer for the Cincinnati Reds, was confronted on May 22 by a fan who hurled an anti-Asian slur at him from a seat above the dugout, Graves did what most of us would do: He hurled back some equally nasty language and, for good measure, displayed his least polite finger.
The response of his ballclub was to suspend him for several games, until he was released from his contract on June 2. It's unclear what happened to the fan. The team told the New York Times it belives no one had been removed from the park.
So it appears that Graves' employer showed more deference to an obnoxious, racist customer than to their own employee, who did not in any way provoke the confrontation except to pace in the dugout within sight of this jerk.
(See posting below on out-of-control sports fans).
"This is like hitting us all in the head with a shovel," Reds' first baseman Sean Casey told the Dayton Daily News. "This was a poor way to handle it."
To say the least.
The good news is that Graves, who led his team in career saves, with 182 so far, has been picked up as a middle reliever by the Mets. The team may be in the basement so far this season, but they lead the league in class for this acquisition.
New York may not be where the action is this season, but we embrace diversity here, and the bigots mostly know to keep their big traps shut.

What's Eating Crowe?

2005-06-10T16:57:00.000-07:00

Apparently it's tough, stressful business being a multi-million dollar movie star in Oscar-winning films. Just ask Russell Crowe, who blew off a little steam at the expense of a hotel concierge's cheekbone the other day.
After seven hours in the pokey for throwing a phone in the concierge's face, Crowe --wearing a jacket promoting "Cinderella Man" both during his arraignment and on the David Letterman show -- apologized for losing his cool.
That's after his publicist released an early statement blaming the victim for supposedly having "attitude." It's been a busy week for celebrity arrests for the NYPD. Crowe's comes on the heels, as it were, of the bust of a less-successful actor, Christian Slater, for groping a woman on the street in some kind of fit after an argument with a female companion.
Some might say any publicity is better than none for these actors, but I doubt facing jail time will sell many "Cinderella Man" tickets (even if it is a boxing movie) or revive Slater's flagging career.
It seems to me that being rich and famous really does take a toll on one's psyche. Look at all the child stars driven to dysfunction by early fame. After all, our minds are designed to reach and aspire and to dream. Like a mountain climber who puts all his energy into the ascent, what do you do when you reach the top?
A prime example: Bill Clinton, elected leader of the free world, from humble origins, in his 40s. Maybe an impulse deep inside made him want to crash and burn, and he nearly did, because something made him fear that he wasn't up to the task, and even more so fear what he was going to do when his eight years in office were up.
Michael Jackson is surely another case in point. When was the last time you heard any news about Michael that had to do with an album or concert? It's been one bad turn after another until the point he may well end up in jail. Clearly he's been driven mad by his absolute absence of aspiration. All of his actions point to a desire to go back to his childhood, when the kind of behavior he's exhibited might be more acceptable.
Maybe the subconscious desire of the climber is to retreat down the mountain a bit, to a more breathable altitude.

There's Nothing Funny About Child Abuse
"What does Michael Jackson order for lunch?" Jay Leno asks. "Tater tots. In fact, he just tells the waiter to keep the taters, just send the tots."
Hilarious. Leno, who had a soul earlier in his career as tonight show host and would reject certain kinds of jokes, now seems like he couldn't give a damn what's on the cue card. The jokes about child molestation, which often include visuals, have been going on for years, ever since Jackson was first accused of impropriety with kids. Conan O'Brien also dabbles in those jokes, though not as often. I haven't seen David Letterman or Jon Stewart or any of the other late night hosts sink that low.
Not that I'm sticking up for Jackson (a lost cause, if ever there was one) but there's simply nothing funny about child abuse or even someone being accused of it. It may be easy enough if you're removed enough from it to laugh. But I doubt any parent of a kid who has been anywhere near that kind of nightmare (thankfully, I am not one) or the kids themselves would slap their knee or simply wave a finger and say "ah, cut that out" if they heard that kind of joke.
You could argue that the basis of humor is taking that which frightens, sickens and confuses us and making into a simplistic joke, something we can understand. But it takes something out of the indignation we should have as a society about this kind of crime if we treat it as a laughing matter. The fact that Leno not only makes these jokes but gets an uproarious laugh each time is a troubling sign.