13 December 2011
06 December 2011
This is Israel?
This is Israel? Not the one I love | The Jewish Chronicle
This is a messed up, sad, situation.
30 November 2011
02 September 2011
Religion as Idolatry
Today I read that eight people were killed in Afghanistan after a pastor in Florida conducted a mass burning of Korans. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/world/asia/03afghanistan.html?hp
The pastor is claimed to be feeling vindicated because it showed how evil radical Islamists are. I would agree with Pastor Jones that radical Islamists are evil, or deluded people. To me, the burning of a book isn't worth killing anyone over, though I am reminded of Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938, the night of broken glass that was sponsored by the Nazi government in Germany that marked the beginning of the Holocaust - the mass, efficient killing of Europe's Jews. That said, I wouldn't leave the classification of deluded only to radical Islamists. Their deluded Jewish and Christian brethren who hold views that I can only call religious idolatry are as guilty of promoting hate and violence among the world's peoples.
My Ishmaelite cousins got really, really pissed off not too long ago at some European newspaper cartoonists who they felt drew the prophet Mohammed in an unflattering light. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
People died because of this bullshit. And to me, there are enough fanatics of every faith who fail to see the allegory that is inherent in religion and seek to find every single article of the truth of life in words that were written thousands (in the case of the Jews and Christians) and 800-900 years (in the case of Muslims) of years ago that describe circumstances that are physically impossible.
In the case of this play, enough zealous, fanatic Christians, of the sort who think that killing doctors who perform abortions is acceptable, will latch on to calls such as yours and start doing exactly what you noted at the bottom of your email - bomb threats and the like.
To me, no religion, at least not one that can speak to me, can have any kind of human form, for that, to me, is not what God is as I think of him/her/it. God is a formless creator and it's only because people many years ago (beginning with the Jews who founded Christianity) could not deal with such abstract notions that somehow actual living, breathing men like Jesus and Mohammed became deities. Moses is not a deity, so please do not confuse his status with that of Jesus or Mohammed.
Please don't take offense at what I have written - it's not intended that way but is, I assure you, what is in my heart and why I am and will always be a happy Jew. We don't have any problems with blasphemous drawings or art because our one God (and yours - I am not sure of how exactly Jesus got to be a deity) is a formless creature, without human characteristics as we understand them, except and apart from the soul which he/she/it imparted to every one of us here on this earth.
The pastor is claimed to be feeling vindicated because it showed how evil radical Islamists are. I would agree with Pastor Jones that radical Islamists are evil, or deluded people. To me, the burning of a book isn't worth killing anyone over, though I am reminded of Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938, the night of broken glass that was sponsored by the Nazi government in Germany that marked the beginning of the Holocaust - the mass, efficient killing of Europe's Jews. That said, I wouldn't leave the classification of deluded only to radical Islamists. Their deluded Jewish and Christian brethren who hold views that I can only call religious idolatry are as guilty of promoting hate and violence among the world's peoples.
My Ishmaelite cousins got really, really pissed off not too long ago at some European newspaper cartoonists who they felt drew the prophet Mohammed in an unflattering light. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
People died because of this bullshit. And to me, there are enough fanatics of every faith who fail to see the allegory that is inherent in religion and seek to find every single article of the truth of life in words that were written thousands (in the case of the Jews and Christians) and 800-900 years (in the case of Muslims) of years ago that describe circumstances that are physically impossible.
In the case of this play, enough zealous, fanatic Christians, of the sort who think that killing doctors who perform abortions is acceptable, will latch on to calls such as yours and start doing exactly what you noted at the bottom of your email - bomb threats and the like.
To me, no religion, at least not one that can speak to me, can have any kind of human form, for that, to me, is not what God is as I think of him/her/it. God is a formless creator and it's only because people many years ago (beginning with the Jews who founded Christianity) could not deal with such abstract notions that somehow actual living, breathing men like Jesus and Mohammed became deities. Moses is not a deity, so please do not confuse his status with that of Jesus or Mohammed.
Please don't take offense at what I have written - it's not intended that way but is, I assure you, what is in my heart and why I am and will always be a happy Jew. We don't have any problems with blasphemous drawings or art because our one God (and yours - I am not sure of how exactly Jesus got to be a deity) is a formless creature, without human characteristics as we understand them, except and apart from the soul which he/she/it imparted to every one of us here on this earth.
In sum, I really hope that fanatical Christians just take this all in stride as they have in the past. I am reminded of the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit many years ago at, I believe, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, where he exhibited a piece of "art" which was an acrylic box with a glass of urine in the middle of it, with a cross placed in the glass. To me, that was an artist's expression, as is this latest trifle that is evidently causing quite a stir in the Muslim community. I just hope no-one dies on its account. Life is too precious.
19 April 2011
Thoughts on Richard Goldstone on Passover : Je VOUS accuse!
Thoughts on Richard Goldstone on Passover: Je VOUS accuse!
Richard Goldstone is literally a lily livered traitor to mankind as well as the Jewish people. On the completion of the first full day that we celebrate our freedom from horrible slavery, we are reminded that he has given our enemies the material they could use to not just enslave us, but to question our very existence. Let us hope that there is a God on this night because the Jewish people are in trouble in so many ways, and Goldstone is partially responsible for giving our enemies a particularly and sadly effective weapon against us: world public opinion that only listens to the loudest noise, and then only for a 24 hour newscycle.
I am quite positive that in his arrogance, born of growing up in an environment where apartheid was law, he convinced himself that if he could make peace between blacks and whites in South Africa, he could make peace between the Arabs and the Jews. Such arrogance led him to commit treason against mankind in general and his own Jewish people in particular. If he wasn't Jewish and my own brother, he should do the honorable thing and commit hari-kiri, if of course you could assume he has any honor left.
I really don't think so, and his article in the Washington Post was just a bunch of diplomatic bullshit to try to get his people's affection back by stating what was then obvious and is moreso now: that no more then, and probably less now, could the IDF ever be capable of institutions run by people who would systemically attack civilians intentionally. We are Jews. Jews don't commit those sorts of crimes systemically or intentionally without punishment. People expect too much from us and therein lies the hatred fanned by the traitor Richard Goldstone.
Richard Goldstone is literally a lily livered traitor to mankind as well as the Jewish people. On the completion of the first full day that we celebrate our freedom from horrible slavery, we are reminded that he has given our enemies the material they could use to not just enslave us, but to question our very existence. Let us hope that there is a God on this night because the Jewish people are in trouble in so many ways, and Goldstone is partially responsible for giving our enemies a particularly and sadly effective weapon against us: world public opinion that only listens to the loudest noise, and then only for a 24 hour newscycle.
I am quite positive that in his arrogance, born of growing up in an environment where apartheid was law, he convinced himself that if he could make peace between blacks and whites in South Africa, he could make peace between the Arabs and the Jews. Such arrogance led him to commit treason against mankind in general and his own Jewish people in particular. If he wasn't Jewish and my own brother, he should do the honorable thing and commit hari-kiri, if of course you could assume he has any honor left.
I really don't think so, and his article in the Washington Post was just a bunch of diplomatic bullshit to try to get his people's affection back by stating what was then obvious and is moreso now: that no more then, and probably less now, could the IDF ever be capable of institutions run by people who would systemically attack civilians intentionally. We are Jews. Jews don't commit those sorts of crimes systemically or intentionally without punishment. People expect too much from us and therein lies the hatred fanned by the traitor Richard Goldstone.
02 April 2011
Elmo Hope
Elmo Hope was one of New York's finest jazz pianists who sadly died way too young of a heroin overdose in 1967. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmo_Hope
09 February 2011
La Nevada Blues by Gil Evans
Just back from Bloomington where I saw Mitch in concert. This is video from last semester's concert at the Musical Arts Center, so you can get an idea of where he's playing and how he's progressing as a musician. It was just so amazing to see him progress to this level and the sky is literally the limit for him. Oh to be young AND talented.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
